CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
THIS BOOK IS ONE OF
A COLLECTION MADE BY
BENNO LOEWY
1854-1919
AND BEQUEATHED TO
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Cornell University Library
Z5777 .P41
My cQpMy...books,,.by.„Elizabeth ,„Robins Pe
3 1924 032 313 375
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Cornell University
Library
The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.
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MY COOKERY BOOKS
MY COOKERY
BOOKS
BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
BOSTON AISTD NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
MDCCCCIII
Copyright 190S by Houghton, Mifflin and Company
All rights reserved
INTRODUCTION
jLT is not given to every one to he a collector of fine
hooTcs and rare first editions. The pi^izes are reserved
for the millionaire. But the most modest bibliophile, by
the pursuit of one special subject, may get together a col-
lection valuable for other reasons. I do not hnow that I
deserve so ambitious a name as bibliophile, but I have no
doubt as to the value of the collection of cooTcery booTcs
about which it has been my pleasure and privilege to
write. I admit that to the moneyed booh-hunter, though
he would envy me a few of my volumes, a great num-
ber, from his point of view, might seem poor trash. JVbr
do I claim for my collection completeness. I would not
be so foolish with those two thousand five hundred entries
in M. Vicaire's Bibliography forever haunting me as a
reproach. But then, M. Vicaire does not own the two
thousand five hundred booTcs, and I very much doubt
whether any one individual ever will. The collector is
but mortal. All I claim is that my collection has grown
to respectable and, I believe, unrivaled proportions, and
VI
that the number of looks in it, and the countries and cen-
turies they represent lend them as a series the importance
which it would he absurd to attribute to each talcen sepa-
rately.
As for the subject, mine first by chance and now by pre-
ference, it needs no apology. Everybody eats and every-
body should enjoy eating. The old asceticism that held
pleasure in food to be gluttony, and consequently one of
the seven deadly sins, has all but disappeared. Even
Woman has thrown off the traditional shacTcles and is
no longer ashamed of an honest appetite. It is too late
now for the novelist, however romantic, to carry her
through the serious crisis of her life, with Fielding's
Sophia, on " a little sacTc-whey made very small and
thin.''' The new generation believes with Brillat-Savarin
that love of good living is by no means a blemish in
woman, though, perhaps, as yet, not every one would go
to his lengths and believe that a pretty woman is never
prettier than when at table. In one way, something of
the old prejudice lingers. It is still considered demoral-
izing, or, at least, " bad form " to think much ahaut food
and drink. But this is a mistake. It was when men and
women began to think about eating that they developed it
Vll
into the Fine Art it ought to be. Sounds might have re-
mained mere noise hut for the musician, colors mere
discord hut for the painter ; eating would never have
been more than a gross necessity but for the gourmet.
" 11 faut manger avec esprit" says a French authority,
and to do so requires the thought and enthusiasm that the
musician or painter gives to his art.
Neither does the study of Gastronomy through the ages
call for an explanation. " Tell me what you eat, and
I will tell you what you are''' is the fourth in Brillat-
Savarin's list of Fundamental Truths. It would be
more to the purpose to explain why the historian and
the philosopher have hitherto paid so little heed to the
subject. The world still waits for the Carlyle who will
write for it a Philosophy of Food. When he comes
he will find in my collection the material made to his
hand.
But if eating were not an art, if food had not its philo-
sophy, my books would still be amusing, and that is their
great recommendation. No black-letter man, vmr tall
copyist, nor uncut man, nor rough-edge man, nor early
English dramatist, nor Elzevirian, nor broadsider, nor
pasquinader, nor old brown calf man, nor Cfrangerite,
vm
nor tawny moroccoite, nor gilt t(ypper, nor marhled in-
sider, nor editio princeps man, to borrow Dr. Hill Bur-
ton! s classification, could get as much genuine amusement
out of his hooTcs as I do out of mine. Now this amuse-
ment, for several reasons, either dwindles, or else changes
its character so completely, hy the end of the eighteenth
century that I have brought the story of my books and
the bibliography down to no later date. In the nineteenth
century there were, on the one hand, the cookery boohs,
prosaic as primers, that, with their business-like, practi-
cal, direct methods, were more useful in the kitchen than
entertaining in the library; on the other hand, the books
about cookery, so literary in flavor that they were not
adapted to the kitchen at all. The new writers, of whom
Orimod de la Beyniere was the flrst great master,
brought about such a revolution in not only the style,
but the very attitude of writers on cookery, that I pi^efer
to consider their work by itself My study of all these
books has made me sufficiently an artist to want to see
my own volume as perfectly rounded out. It is my re-
spect for them that shows me the folly of dogmatizing
upon the many I do not know at first hand. In the fol-
lowing pages, I do not pretend to rival M. Vicaire or
IX
Mr. Hazlitt biUiographically. I have not the temerity
to wander further afield thayi my own collection.
The illustrations speaTc for themselves. The old title-
page always has charm, and, in the cooTcery book, it has
besides a character of its own. It served the author the
purpose of the modern tradesman's poster or advertise-
ment until, at times, it seems as if his one object had been
to sum up upon it the entire contents of his booh. The
portraits that appear as frontispieces are, to me, an end-
less source of delight. Wliat new dignity a cooTcery booTc
acquires when a queen or a man of title presides over it!
And with what increased deference one reads the receipts
of the chef who evidently takes himself as seriously and
solemnly as Robert May or E. Kidder! I wish I could
give all the portraits. But it would be unfair to my col-
lection if I did not also show some of the amazing allego-
ries which occasionally replaced the portrait as frontis-
piece, and of wMch the plates from Les Dons de Gomus
and Dr. Lister''s edition of Apicius Coelius are typical
examples. There are, moreover, the illustrations in the
text. I should like nothing better than to include the com-
plete series of plates from ScappPs book, for nowhere
else that I know of is there so interesting and full an invent
tory of the TcitcJien as it was in sixteenth century Italy.
The models for the carver, whether of fish, fowl, or fruit,
are characteristic, and the one design for setting a table
harely does justice to a detail of dining, that, for long,
pre-occupied the authorities. The eighteenth century books
are full of such plates.
It is impossible, however, to exhaust a collection like
mine in a single volume. I can only hope that what il-
lustrations there are, together with my praise, all too
feeble, of the irresistible text, will send the curious to the
originals. Though, in self-defense, it might be wiser to
restrain the ardor of the enthusiast until a few of the
more glaring gaps on my shelves have been filled.
ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOPHON : COELIUS APIOIUS, 1498 . . Opposite page 6
TITLE : THE COMPLEAT COOK, 1655 .... 14
TITLE : THE QUEEN'S CLOSET OPENED, 1655 . . 16
POETEAIT OE ROBERT MAT 26
TITLE : FOURTH EDITION OP MRS. GLASSE'S ART OP
COOKERY, 1761 42
TITLE : A COLLECTION OP ABOVE THREE HUNDRED
RECEIPTS, ETC., 1719 58
PRONTISPIECE : lister's COELIUS APIOIUS, 1709 . 68
TITLE : PIRST EDITION OP COELIUS APIOIUS . . 76
TITLE : LA SINGOLARE DOTTRINA DI M. DOMENICO
ROMOLI, 1560 82
BANQUET OP CARDINALS : SCAPPl'S OPERA, 1570 . 84
THE VATICAN KITCHEN : SCAPPl'S OPERA, 1570 . 88
PRONTISPIECE : LES DONS DE COMUS, 1758 . . 92
PLATE PROM LB GRAND EOUTER TRANCHANT . 96
Xll
TITLE : NUEVO AETB DE COCniTA, 1760 . . .106
TITLE : DE RE CIBAEIA, 1560 . . . . .112
KITCHEN UTENSILS, ETC. : SCAPPl'S OPERA, 1570 . 114
TITLE : LA VAEENlSrE'S CUISINIER ERAISrCOIS, 1656 . 120
TEAPOTS : LE BON USAGE DU THE, ETC., 1687 . . 122
TITLE : l'aRT DE CONSBEVER SA SANTE, 1753 . 126
TITLE : LA CUISINIEEE BOURGEOISE, 1777 . . 128
TITLE : GERVASE MAEE^IAM'S ENGLISH HOUSEWIEE,
1631 132
FRONTISPIECE : THE QUEEN'S CLOSET, 1668 . . 136
PORTRAIT OP SIE KENELM DIGBT . . . .138
PLAN OF THE TABLE : COMPLEAT CITY AND COUN-
TRY COOK, 1732 148
PORTRAIT OP EDWARD KIDDER . . . .150
TITLE : FIRST EDITION OF MES. GLASSE'S AET OF
COOKERY, 1747 154
"WOOD ENGEAVESTG BY JOHN BEWICK FEOM THE
HONOUES OF THE TABLE, 1788 . . . .162
TITLE : AETE DE COCINA, ETC 168
MY COOKERY BOOKS
MY
COOKEKY BOOKS
Xt was with something of a shock that I woke one morn-
ing and foimd myself a collector of cookery books. I
am not sure which seemed the more extraordinary, —
that there should be cookery books to collect, or that I
should be collecting them. I had thought — if indeed I
had thought anything about it — that Mrs. Rorer and
CasseU's Dictionary exhausted the literature of the sub-
ject, though I had heard of Mrs. Glasse : partly because
the " First catch your hare," which she never wrote, long
since passed into a classical quotation ; and partly because,
when I first came to London, George Augustus Sala was
still writing the newspaper notes he could rarely finish
without a reference to " good old Hannah Glasse." How-
ever, had I known then, as I do now, that cookery books
are almost as old as time, my principles — and my purse
— were against collecting anything, especially in Lon-
2
don, where it adds seriously to the burden of cleanliness.
But who does go about it dehberately? Mr. Andrew
Lang calls collecting a sport; Dr. Hill Burton defines it
first as a " human frailty," then as a " pecuKar malady,"
which is the definition I accept. Certainly I can trace my
attack to its deadly germ.
I had undertaken, in an ambitious moment, to write a
weekly column on cookery for the Pall Mall Gazette,
when my only quahfications were the healthy appetite
and the honest love of a good dinner usually considered
" unbecoming to the sex." To save me from exposure, a
friend gave me Dumas' Dictionnaire de la Cuisine, the
masterpiece of that "great artist in many varieties of
form," to quote Mr. Henley, as it is appropriate I should,
since he was the friend who came so nobly to my aid.
The book was useful beyond expectation. I borrowed
from its pages as lavishly as Dumas had, in compiling it,
helped himself from the dishes and menus of Beauvilliers
and Yuillemot. The danger was that I might borrow
once too often for the patience of my readers; and so,
chancing presently on the uniformly bound works of
Careme,Etienne,and Gouffe in a second-hand bookshop,
I bought them, vdthout stopping to ask if they were first
8
editions, — as they were not, — so far was the idea of
collecting still from my mind. My one object was good
" copy." But booksellers always manage to know you
are collecting before you know it yourself. Catalogues
poured in upon me, and I kept on buying all the cook-
ery books that promised to be of use. Gradually they
spread out into an imposing row on my desk ; they over-
flowed to the bookshelves ; they piled themselves up in
odd corners ; they penetrated into the linen closet, —
the last place, I admit, the neat housekeeper should
look for them. And yet, it was not until the summer
when I went without a new gown, and carried off at
Sotheby's, from the clutches of the dealer and the maw
of the librarian, one of the few first editions of " good
old Hannah Glasse " — the very copy from which Sala
made hundreds of articles — for fifty dollars, and bought
a bookcase for I do not remember how many more,
that I realized what had happened, and then it was too
late.
Anyhow, my sin has not been the " unlit lamp and the
ungirt loin." If it be a mistake to collect, at least I
have collected so well that I have yet to find the col-
lection of cookery books that can equal mine. It may
4
be put to shame when I consult M. Georges Yicaire's
Bibliographie Gastronomique, with its twenty-five hun-
dred entries, especially as M. Vicaire's knowledge of
the English books on the subject is incomplete, and his
ignorance of the American exhaustive, — he has never
heard of Miss Leshe, poor man. But I am in counte-
nance again when I refer to Mr. Carew Hazhtt's bibli-
ography ; for I rejoice in a number of English books
that have no place in it, while it barely touches upon
foreign books, of which I have many. When it comes
to actual collections, I triumph. Mr. Hazlitt speaks of
the " valuable and extensive assemblage of Enghsh and
foreign cookery books in the Patent Ofiice Library ; "
but it dwindles to modest proportions when compared
to mine. A private collection in Hampstead was de-
scribed to me by Dr. Furnivall in terms that threatened
my overwhelming discomfiture ; but, on examination,
cookery proved a side issue with the collector, and
though I felt like shpping two or three of his shabby
little calf -bound volumes into my pocket when he was
not looking, there were innumerable gaps I could have
filled. The cookery books at the British Museum are
many, but diligent searching of the catalogue has not
Antoniusmota Advulgus.
Plauditcfaftores:c«tari:pkuditc_ventres
Plaudite myftili tc<Ila per vndh coqui
Pila fit albanis quaccunqj ornata lagarnfs
Pinguc fuum copo limen obcfus amet
Occupac infubres alciflimus ille nepotum
Gorges U vndantes auget 8C vrgetaquas
Millia fex vSntri qui fixit Apicius alto
Indecimens:rumplic dira ven6na;famem*
loannes falaiidus lectori.
Accipe quifquisamas irn'camenta palati:
Prcccpta;dC leges:oxigarutiK^ nouum:
Condid«rat caput:8C (lygias penitrauerac vndas
Celiusnn lucem nee rcdirurus erat:
Nunc mitur dextra vcrfatus Apiciusomni
Vrbem habet:SC tecftum qui perigrinus erat :
A ccepium motte noftro debebis:6C fpfi
Immortalis eritgratia:lau£ Sd honor:
Perquemnonlicuit celebricaruifle nepote;
Perquem dehincfugiet lingua latina fitum.
ImpreflSim Mcdi'clani per magiftrum Guilcttnum
Signerre Rothomagenfera Anno doi . Mcccclxxxx
viu.die.xx.menfis lanuarii.
7
Glasse in folio, when always afterwards she appears in
less ambitious octavo, — to name but the most widely
known of all. These are not prizes to be dismissed
lightly.
My pride compels me to add (in parenthesis, as it
were, for I had not meant to write about it here) that
I own not only the Mrs. Glasse, but the Coehus Apicius.
It is, in the 1498 edition, a beautiful book, printed in
the Roman type William Morris approved and copied
for the Kelmscott Press, the page harmoniously spaced,
with noble margins, a place left at the beginning of
divisions for the illuminator's capitals, and the paper
tenderly toned with age. My copy is in surprisingly
good condition, — not a tear or a stain anywhere. It
has an interesting pedigree. Dr. BlacMe's autograph
and the bookplate of Dr. Klotz, the German collector,
are on the fly-leaf. But it has no title-page ! How-
ever, even in its mutilated state it is rare, and, though
I cannot read it, — I went to school before the days of
the higher education for women, and to a convent, so
that all the Latin I learnt was the Ave and the Pater,
the Credo and the Confiteor, — I look upon it as the
corner stone of my collection.
Still, I am not like Dibdin's Philemon, and I like to
read my books. It is another of the good qualities of
the cookery book that when you can read it, it makes
the best reading in the world. For this pleasure I must
come to my shelf of the seventeenth-century Enghsh
books ; mostly small duodecimos in shabby battered calf,
one in shabbier battered velliun, their pages browned
and stained with constant use. It must not be thought
that my collection leaps in this disjointed fashion from
century to century. Some very rare and quaint six-
teenth-century ItaUan books are the link between these
duodecimos and the Apicius; but to interpret them I
need a dictionary at my elbow. Besides, they have been
well cared for by the bibliographer, and I want to show
first, what has not been shown before, how dehghtful
the old cookery book is as a book to read, not merely
to catalogue or to keep handy on the kitchen dresser.
I pass over also the printed copies of early poems
and works, preserved in famous historical manuscripts,
and edited in the last century by Dr. Pegge and other
scholars, in our day chiefly by Dr. Furnivall and the
Early English Text Society. Though I consider them
as indispensable as Apicius, and though I own the
9
Forme of Cury and the Liber Cure Cocorum and the
Noble Book of Cookery, and the rest, they are to be
classed with Charles Lamb's books that are not books,
so difficult are they to all but the expert. Unfortu-
nately, I have none of the sixteenth-century English
books, of which Hazhtt gives a list of eight. Perhaps
they were issued in very small editions; more proba-
bly, they were so popular that, like the early romances
from Caxton's and from Wynkyn de "Worde's press,
they were " thumbed out of existence." After 1600 the
supply seems to have been larger, no doubt because of
the growing demand, and more copies have survived.
Most of the cookery books of the seventeenth century
went through several editions; not even CromweU and
the Puritans could check their popularity; and I hke to
think, when I turn over their thin, soiled, torn pages,
that many people read them not solely for information,
but for pleasure, like Pepys, that fine simimer day when,
his wife safe in the country, he carried his ladies to the
king's pleasure boat, and then down the river, between
the great wharves and the shipping, " all the way read-
ing in a book of Receipts of making fine meats and
sweetmeats . . . which made us good sport."
10
For Pepys, to whom, as Stevenson puts it, the whole
world was a Garden of Armida, "infinite delight"
lurked as naturally in a recipe as in his first periwig, or
the nightingales at YauxhaU, or a lesson in arithmetic,
or whatever else it might be. For us, of less buoyant
temperament, if there be infinite delight, it is due, above
all, to the magic of the past and the charm of associ-
ation. Stateliness and elegance were the order of the
day in the seventeenth century. The men, who ar-
rayed themselves in gorgeous clothes, spoke in the
rounded periods that were ua keeping, — in the " bro-
caded language" of Mr. Gosse's expressive phrase.
And the cookery books are fuU of this brocaded lan-
guage, full of extravagant conceits, full of artificial
ornament; a lover writing to his mistress, you would
say, rather than a cook or a housewife giving practical
directions. After the modern recipe, blunt to the point
of brutality; after the "Take so much of this, add so
much of that, and boil, roast, fry," as the dull case may
be, each fresh extravagance, each fresh affectation, is
as enchanting as the crook of Lely's ladies or the Silvio
of Herrick's verse. I should not want to try the re-
cipes, so appalling often is the combination of savories
11
and sweets, so colossal the proportions. But they were
written by artists who had as pretty a talent for turning
a phrase as for mventing a new dish. Eose leaves and
saffron, musk and " amber-greece," orange flower and
angeUca, are scattered through them, until it seems as
if the feast could have been spread only for Phillis or
Anthea. And no water can be poiu-ed into their pots
that is not " fair," few blossoms chosen as ingredients
that are not "pleasing." Cakes are " pretty conceits,"
and are garnished " according to art." If cider leaves
its dregs, these are " naughty," and a sweet is recom-
mended because it " comf orteth the Stomach and Heart."
The names of the dishes are a joy: the tanzies of vio-
lets or cowshps, and the orangado phraises ; the sylla-
bubs and the frumenties, — "all-tempting Frumenty;"
the wiggs and the pasties; the eggs in moonshine; the
conserves of red roses ; the possets without end, almost
as lyrical as the poet's, made
" With cream of lilies, not of kine.
And maiden's blush for spiced wine."
And the drinks : metheghn, — do we not know to the
day the date of Pepys' first "brave cup" of it? —
12
meath, hydromel, hypocras, — a word that carries one
to the Guildhall buttery, a certain Lord Mayor's Day,
where Pepys is gayly tipphng; hypocras "being to the
best of my present judgment only a mixed compound
drink, and not any wine," which he had forsworn by
solemn vow. " If I am mistaken, God forgive me ! but
I hope and do think I am not." Who would not share
Pepys' easy conscience ? Hypocras was " only," Dr.
Twin's way, a strong compound of spice and herbs and
sugar steeped for days in a gallon of good Rhenish
wine ; in very good claret wine, Giles Rose's way.
All the cookery books of the century are written in this
brocaded language, all reveal the same pleasant fancy,
all contain the same pretty dishes and strange drinks.
But still, they have their differences that divide them '
into three distinct classes. Many are simply the old fam-
ily manuscript collection of recipes, at that period com-
mon in every household of importance, put into print;
to a few the master cook gives the authority of his name
and experience ; while there are others in which cook-
ery is but one of several arts " exposed " by the accom-
plished women, to whom curing leprosy was as simple as
cooking a dinner, killing rats as ordinary a pastime as
13
making wax flowers, and who had altogether attained a
degree of omniscience that the modern contributor to
a ladies' paper might well envy.
The old manuscript collection of recipes has that touch
of romance we feel in a bit of half- worn embroidery or
a faded sampler. The fragrance of rosemary and thyme
lingers about its leaves. It is full of memories of the
stilh'oom and the cool, spacious pantry. I have two or
three, bought before I realized into what depths of bank-
ruptcy I should plunge if I added manuscripts to my
printed books. I have seen many others. In all, the
tone and quality of the paper would make the etcher
sigh for the waste, while the handwriting — sometimes
prim, sometimes distinguished, sometimes sprawhng —
represents generations of careful housewives. The col-
lection, evidently, has grown at hap-hazard: the new
dish eaten at a neighbor's, jotted down before its secret
is forgotten; the new recipe brought by a friend, en-
tered while she is still by to answer for its accuracy.
The style is easy and confidential; it abounds in little
asides and parentheses; and always credit is given
where credit is due ! This, you are assured, is " Lady
Dorchester's cake " or " Lady Fitzharding's nun's bis-
u
ket; " these are " Lady Kent's brown Almonds " or
" Lady Compton's preserved Barford pipins; " and you
must not mistake for any other " Mrs. Oldfield's lemon
cream " or " Mrs. Brereton's colours for marble cake."
'Now and then, as if to lend a professional air, a famous
chef is cited, — Bartolomeo Scappi or Robert May, —
but this is seldom. And as a housekeeper, in those days,
had to know how to relieve an indigestion as well as
how to make the dish that caused it; as she was, in a
word, the family or village doctor, medical prescriptions
are mingled with the recipes. As like as not, a cake or
cream is wedged between " Aqua Mirabilis, Sir Kellam
Digby's way," and "A most excellent Water for ye
Stone ; " or an " Arrangement of Cucumbers " separates
Dr. Graves's " Receipt for Convulsion Fitts " from " A
Plague Water."
In the printed books of the seventeenth century there is
an attempt at classification, " Incomparable Secrets in
Physick and Chirurgery," if revealed, form a section
apart ; but in other respects those I have put in the first
class share the characteristics of the manuscripts. Their
titles at once point to their origin. Almost all are Closets
or Cabinets opened. There are exceptions. I have a
COMPLEAT
COOK.
Expertly prefcribing the
moft ready wayes,
rjtaltan^
Whethcrx5/;tf«f/5,
Cot French,
For dreffing o£F/e/&,and Fiff^
Ordermsof Sauces^ ormaking-
O F
PASTRY.
L OUT> Ni
Printed {otNath. Brook at the]
An^elinCorn-hill^ i 6 ^ %.
15
fascinating Compleat Cook, a tiny volume, neatly bound
in calf, "expertly prescribing the most ready wayes, whe-
ther ItaUan, Spanish, or French, For dressing of Flesh
and Fish, Ordering of Sauces, or making of Pastry,"
which was printed for Nathaniel Brook, the great pub-
lisher of cookery books, at the Angel in Cornhill, 1655.
I have also two DeUghts : one " printed by R. Y. and are
to bee sold by James Boler 1632," with a sadly defaced
title-page, upon which little is legible save the sage
advice, " Eeade, practise, and Censure ; " and another
of 1683, " printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of
the black Bear in St. Pauls Churchyard." I have also a
Pearl of Practice, and Hartman's True Preserver and
Restorer of Health. But Closet or Cabinet is the more
frequent title. When the name of the author does not
appear, it is usually the Queen's Dehght of which there is
question, the Queen's Closet or Cabinet which is opened.
In my first edition of The Queen's Closet Opened, pub-
lished by the same publisher, Nathaniel Brook, and in the
same year, 1655, as The Compleat Cook, the title-page
states that these are the Incomparable Secrets " as they
were presented to the Queen by the most Experienced
Persons of our times, many whereof were honoured with
16
her own practice, when she pleased to descend to these
most private Recreations;" and that they were " Tran-
scribed from the true Copies of her Majesties own Re-
ceipt Books, by W. M. one of her late servants." In my
later edition of 1668, a portrait of Henrietta Maria, —
most likely a copy from Hollar, — severe in feature and
dress, faces the title-page, much to my satisfaction; for,
if the book turns up every now and then in booksellers'
catalogues, mine is the only copy in which I have yet
seen the portrait. When the name of the author does
appear, it is usually one of great distinction. There is a
" Ladies Cabinet Opened by the Rt Hon. and Learned
Chymist, Lord Ruthven, containing Many Rare Secrets
and Rich Ornaments of several kindes and different
Uses." My copy, published in 1655, by Bedell and Col-
lins, at the Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street, is, alas, a
second edition; 1639 is the year of the first. But the
second has the advantage of containing the most gallant
of prefaces. " Courteous Ladies," it begins ; and it ends,
" I shall thus leave you at Uberty as Lovers in Gardens,
to follow your own fancies. Take what you hke, and de-
light in your choice, and leave what you hst to him whose
labour is not lost if anything please." Another Closet,
THE
QjaEENS CLOSET
OPENED-
Incomparable Secrets in
Thyjicl^ Chirurgery, Tre-
ftrving^ Candjing^ and Cookery %
As they were prefented to the
QJD EE 3\(^
By the moft Experienced Perfons of
I our times, many whereof were honon-
rcd with her own pradice, when (he
pleafed to defcend to chefe more private
Recreations.
Never be/ore fHbltP)ed.
Tranfcribcd from the true Copies of her
MAJESTIES own Receipt-Boob,
by W.M. one of her late lervanis.
Vivit fo^ fmer* virtus.
j Printed for T^thanUt Brook, at ihc Angtl
I in Ctrnhtll, 1 65 5.
17
" Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of
Metheglin, Cherry- Wine, etc., together with Excellent
Directions for Cookery," was opened by no less a person
than Sir Kenelm Digby, whose " name does suflBiciently
auspicate the Work," as his son, who published it, writes
in an inimitable preface. As he appears in Vandyck's
portrait, Sir Kenelm Digby is so very elegant with his
shining armor, so very intellectual with his broad expanse
of forehead, that one would as soon expect to hear of
Lord Sahsbury or Mr. Balfour writing a cookery book.
His Closet has no place in Vicaire's Bibhography, nor
in Hazhtt's; I have often wondered why; for, of all, it
is my favorite. I agree with his dehghtful son that it
" needs no Rhetorical Floscules to set it off," so pleasant
is the thought of this " arrant mountebank," as Evelyn
called him, — this " romantic giant," as later kinder crit-
ics have it, — in the intervals between his duties as chan-
cellor to the queen mother, and his intrigues for the
Church, and his adventures as Theagenes, and his studies
as astrologer, and his practice as amateur physician, sit-
ting quietly at his desk writing out his recipes, as care-
fully as any master cook or scrupulous housewife.
Not only are these Closets and Cabinets and Dehghts as
18
sweet with rosemary and thyme and musk as the manu-
scripts; they are as exact in referring every dish to its
proper authority, they retain the tone of intimacy, they
abound in personal confidences. " My Lady Middlesex
makes Syllabubs for little glasses with spouts, thus," you
read in one collection ; in another, " My Lady Glin useth
her Yenison Pasties" in such and such a fashion; in a
third, that "this is the way the Countess de Penalva
makes Portuguez eggs for the Queen." The adjectives
have the value of a personal recommendation : " The
most kindley way to preserve plums, cherries, and goose-
berries;" "A most Excellent Sirup of Yiolets both in
taste and tincture; " " A singular Manner of making the
Sirup of Roses; " " another sort of Marmalade very com-
fortable for any Lord or Lady Whatsoever; " "An ex-
cellent conceit upon the kernels of dry Walnuts." The
medicines receive equal tenderness : "An exceeding fine
Pill used for the Gout; " " a delicate Stove to sweat in; "
" The Gift of God, praise be to Him, for all manners of
sores ; " "A Precious Water to Revive the Spirits." Who
would not swallow a dozen such pills and gifts and wa-
ters, or sweat a dozen times in such a stove, without a
murmur 1 But it is the confidential manner that I adore.
19
The compiler of the little vellum-bound Delight is for-
ever taking you into his confidence. He revels in hints
and innuendoes: "There is a Country Gentlewoman
whom I could name, which" does so and so; or " This of
a Kinde Gentlewoman whose sMll I doe highly commend
and whose case I do greatly pity ; " and you divine all
sorts of social mysteries. He has sudden outbursts of
generosity: " I have robbed my wives Dairy of this se-
cret, who hath hitherto refused all recompenses that have
been offered her by gentlewomen for the same, and had
I loved a Cheese myself so well as I like the receipt, I
think I could not so easily have imparted the same at
this time. And yet, I must needs confesse, that for the
better gracing of the Title, wherewith I have fronted this
pamphlet, I have been wilhng to publish this with some
other secrets of worth, for the which I have been many
times refused good store both of crowns and angels.
And therefore let no Gentlewoman think this Booke too
deare, at what price soever it shall be valued upon the sale
thereof, neither can I esteem the worke to be of lesse than
twenty years gatherings." And people think the art of
self-advertisement was evolved but yesterday ! Sir Ken-
ehn Digby is the great master of this confidential style.
20
If he gives my Lady Htmgerford's meath, he must ex-
plain that she sent him special word that " She now useth
(and liketh better) a second Decoction of Herbs," which
he also conscientiously records. If he recoromends a sec-
ond meath, it is because a certain chief burgomaster of
Antwerp, for many years, drank it, and nothing else, " at
meals and all times, even for pledging of Healths. And
though he was of an extraordinary vigour every way, and
had every year a child, had always a great appetite and
good digestion, and yet was not fat." He is at pains to
assure you that though Mr. Webbe, probably a master
cook, did use to put in a few cloves and mace in the king's
meath, "the King did not care for them; " that the " Hy-
dromel, as I made it weak for the Queen Mother was
exceedingly liked by everybody ; " that Sir Edward Bain-
ton's metheglin, " My Lord of Portland (who gave it me)
saith was the best he ever drank;" that for his strange
dish of tea and eggs, Mr. Waller's advice is that "the wa-
ter is to remain upon the tea no longer than while you
can say the Miserere Psalm very leisurely." I sometimes
think, if I were in need of bedside books, — which I am
thankful to say I am not, — I should give my choice, not
to Montaigne and Howell with Thackeray, but to Sir Ken-
21
elm Digby and the other openers of the old Closets and
Cabinets.^
The success of these books may have helped to drive the
English cook into authorship. The artist has not always
the patience to be silent while the amateur dogmatizes
upon his art. There is a suggestion of revolt in the pre-
face Eobert May, the " Accomplisht Cook," addressed
to his fellow practitioners. " I acknowledge," he says,
" that there hath aheady been several Books pubhsht
. . . for aught I could perceive to little purpose, empty
and unprofitable Treatises, of as little use as some Nig-
gards Kitchen, which the Reader, in respect of the con-
fusion of the Method, or barrenness of those Authours
Experience, hath rather been puzzled, than profited by."
Mock humility has never been the characteristic of the
cook. He has always respected himself as the pivot of
civihzation. Other men, at times, have shared this re-
spect with him. The Greeks crowned him with gold and
* I am not sure that I would not add Gervase Markham's Eng-
lish Housewife (1631) and Dr. Muffett's Healths Improvement
(1655). Markham is, perhaps, the prettiest and most graceful of
all these writers. But both books have come into my collection
only recently, since this chapter was written.
flowers. He went clothed in velvet, wearing a gold chain,
in Wolsey's day. And in between, during the Roman
rule, during ages of dark and mediaeval barbarity, the
ceremonial of dinner and its serving testified that the
light of truth still glimmered, if dimly. But none ever
understood so well as he the full dignity of his profession.
" A modest Master Cook must be looked on as a contra-
diction in Nature," was a doctrine in the classical kitchen.
By the middle of the seventeenth century Vatel ruled in
France, and in England every distinguished chef was
ready to swear, with Ben Jonson's Master-Cook in the
Masque, that
" A boiler, range, and dresser were the fountains
Of all the knowledge in the universe ; "
that the school of cookery, that " deep School," is
" Both the nurse and mother of the Arts."
Imagine his dismay, then, when the amateur began to
masquerade before the world as artist. Had Sir Kenehn
Digby ever turned out as much as a posset or a syllabub,
could Lord Ruthven, the learned, make a peacock to
look like a porcupine, or an entremose of a swan, that
either should strut his little day as an authority ? Only
the artist has the right to speak on his art. And as Leo-
2S
nardo had written his treatises, as Eeynolds was later
to deliver his discourses, so Eobert May, Will Eabisha,
Giles Rose, and others, perhaps, whom I have not in my
collection, began to publish books upon cookery. Jeal-
ousy of the Frenchman may have been an additional in-
centive. France had already the reputation for delicate
dining which she has never lost, and the noble lord or
lady who patronized the young apprentice sent him for
his training across the Chamiel. May and Kabisha had
both served their term in French households. But it was
another matter when the French chef's book was trans-
lated into English, and threatened to rob the Enghsh
cook of his glory at home. May's preface is full of sneers
at the " Epigram Dishes" with which the French "have
bewitched some of the Gallants of our Nation.''^
Whatever the cook's motive in writing, he gave his book
a character all its own. The actual dishes and drinks
may be those of Closets and Cabinets, but the tone of
intimacy disappears from the recipe; no name but the
author's vouches for the merits of a dish ; the writer is
no longer on a level of equality with his readers, but
addresses them from a higher plane, the plane of know-
ledge. There is no mistaking the air of authority. Offi-
24
cers of the Mouth receive their inBtructions, and irre-
sistible little cuts of birds of strange shape, and joints
of no shape at all, devices for pies and pastry, are intro-
duced as a guide to the Carver and Sewer. Nothing is
neglected, from the building up of those magnificent —
the adjective is May's — triumphs and trophies, those
subtleties, as elaborate as Inigo Jones's setting of a
masque, that were " the delights of the Nobility," to the
folding of " all sorts of Table-hnen in all sorts of Fig-
ures, a neat and gentill Art," much in vogue. And
throughout, the writer never forgets his own impor-
tance. He is as serious as Montaigne's Italian chef, who
talked of cooking with the gravity of the theologian and
in the language of the statesman. His style is as fan-
tastic as that of the cook in Howell's letter to Lady Cot-
tington. He "will tell your Ladyship," Howell writes,
" that the reverend Matron, the Olla podrida hath Intel-
lectuals and Senses ; Mutton, Beef, and Bacon are to her
as the Will, Understanding, and Memory are to the Soul;
Cabbages, Turnips, Artichokes, Potatoes, and Dates
are her five Senses, and Pepper the Common-sense ; she
must have Marrow to keep Life in her, and some Birds
to make her fight; by aU means she must go adorned with
Chains of Sausages."
25
The very title of the cook's treatise was a marvel of bom-
bast. Robert May's — the book was first pubhshed in
1660, by IS^athaniel Brook — must be given in full : " The
Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of Cookery.
Wherein the whole Art is revealed in a more easie and
perfect Method, than hath been pnbhsht in any Lan-
guage. Expert and ready wayes for the Dressing of all
sorts of Flesh, Fowl and Fish : The Raising of Pastes ;
the best Directions for all manner of Kickshaws, and
the most Poinant Sauces; with the Tearms of Carving
and Sewing. An exact Account of all Dishes for the
Season; with other A la mode Curiosities. Together
with the hvely Llustrations of such necessary Figures as
are referred to Practice. Approved by the Fifty Years
Experience and Industry of Robert May, in his Attend-
ance on several Persons of Honour." Let me quote just
one other, for though it is as long, it is also as irresistible.
The book is WUl Rabisha's ; the date, 1673 ; the pubhsher,
E. Calvert at the sign of the Black Spread Eagle at
the West End of St. Paul's; and the title: « The whole
Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and fully mani-
fested, Methodically, Artificially, and according to the
best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch
26
etc. Or, a Sympathy of all varieties in Natural Com-
pomide in that Mysterie. "Wherein is contained certain
Bills of Fare for the Seasons of the year, for Feasts
and Common Diets. Wherunto is annexed a Second
Part of Rare Receipts of Cookery : with certain useful
Traditions. With a book of Preserving, Conserving and
Candying, after the most Exquisite and Newest manner:
Delectable for Ladies and Gentlewomen." A title, this,
that recalls Dorothy Osborne's coxcombs who " labour
to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense."
The note may be pitched high, but not too high for the
grandiloquent flights that f oUow. Dedications, prefaces,
introductory poems, are in harmony, and as ornate with
capitals and itahcs as the dishes are with spices and
sweets. The Accomplisht Cook is further " embellished "
with May's portrait: a large, portly person, with heavy
face, but determined mouth, wearing his own hair,
though I hope he Uved long enough to take, like Pepys,
to a periwig, so well would it have become him. Below
the portrait, verses, engraved on the plate, declare with
poetic confusion that,
" Would'st thou view but in one face.
All hospitalitie, the race
yJlVliat^ inoii'd-yt tma akw hut in one face
aU Ifojvthiliiie tlic nice ,
,oftno/c' that Jor tlw Gtr^yto ■siamL
whose i/ihlcs a wiwle^rk aymand
jfT^uivj trli'Titic wouldst tnoU fen , V
tfiis ft f/it, jjcrufc Ma i],y look^^fhsjjce^
■: I.- I..
27
Of those that for the Gusto stand.
Whose tables a whole Ark comand
Of Nature's plentie, would'st thou see
This sight, peruse May's booke, 't is hee."
A few pages further on there is another panegyric in
verse, " on the unparallel'd Piece of Mr. May, his Cook-
ery," and an appeal " to the Reader of (my very loving
Friend) Mr. Robert May, his incomparable Book of
Cookery," by an admirer who thinks only the pen
" Of famous Cleaveland or renowned Ben,
If unintoom'd might give this Book its due."
Will Rabisha has but one poet to sing his praise ; he,
however, does it thoroughly: —
" Brave Book, into the world begone.
Thou vindicatest thy Authour fearing none,
That ever was, or is, or e're shall be
Able to find the parallel of thee."
The dedications are obsequious for such great men, but
obsequiousness in dedications was the fashion of the day.
May's book is dedicated not alone to Sir Kenelm Digby,
but to Lord Lumley, Lord Lovelace, Sir Wilham Paston,
Sir Frederick Comwallis, aU of whom, with the exception
28
of Lord Lovelace, contributed to Sir Kenelm Digby's
collection of recipes. " The Maecenas's and Patrons of
this Generous Art," May calls them, in a rhetorical out-
burst. Eabisha, on the other hand, pays his tribute to
two " illustrious duchesses," and three " renowned, sia-
gular good, and vertuous Ladies," to whose " boundless
unspeakable virtues " he would do the honor that in him
lies. May was the "most humbly devoted servant to
their Lordships," and Eabisha the " poor, unworthy ser-
vant till death " of their graces and ladyships. But this
was mere posing. The real man in May comes out when
he addresses as "Most "Worthy Artists" the master
cooks and young practitioners to whom he hopes his
book will be useful; when he explains that he writes
because "God and my own Conscience would not permit
me to hury these my JExperiences with my Silver Hairs
in the Grave." No one shall say of him that he " hid
his Candle under a Bushel." It is the real Eabisha who
dwells upon the " Many years study and practice in the
Art and Mysterie of Cookery " that are his quaUfications
as author, and the duty of " the ingenious men of all Arts
and Sciences to hold forth to Posterity what light or
knowledge " they understand to be obscure in their art.
29
The same spirit betrays itself here and there in the re-
cipes. " The fruits and flowers that you make white
must be kept in a dry place," writes Giles Rose, or his
translator, " if you will keep them for your credit and
honour." For your credit and honor ! There spoke the
artist. Or again, for the whipping of cream, your whisk
" ought to be made of the fine small twigs of Birch, or
such like wood neatly peeled, and tied up in quantity a
little bigger than your thumb, and the small ends must
be cut off a little, for fear of breaking in your cream,
and so you come to be made ashamed." That is the
kind of thing, as Stevenson says, that reconciles one to
life ! The flamboyant recipes, the monumental menus,
are amusing; but what I love best in my cookery books
is the " vanity of the artist " that is their inspiration.
It was the vanity of the superior woman that inspired
Mrs. Hannah Woolley, now forgotten by an ungrateful
world. In 1670 she pubhshed The Queen-Like Closet
or Rich Cabinet, with a Supplement added in 1674, that
echpsed aU the Treasuries and Guides and Practices
for Ladies that had already appeared, as it excels those
that, later on, were to take it as model. It is the only
seventeenth-century book of the kind in my collection;
80
but were the others on the shelf with it, I should still
turn to Mrs. "WooUey as the perfect type of the Univer-
sal Provider of her age and generation. She was sim-
ply amazing, as no one knew better than herself. Like
Eobert May, she did not believe in hiding her candle
under a bushel; but where May wrote for the greater
honor of his art, she wrote for the greater honor of her-
self. Even had she pined for the peace of obsciu-ity, —
which she did not, — her remarkable talents had made
her conspicuous since childhood. Before she was fifteen
she had been the mistress of a little school, — she tells
the tale herself, — where she continued till the age of
seventeen, " when my extraordinary parts appeared more
splendid in the eyes of a noble lady in this Kingdom than
really they deserved, and she greedily entertained me in
her house as Governess of her only Daughter." Then,
at -the death of the first lady, this prodigy was as greed-
ily appropriated by a second, and presently " gained so
great an esteem among the ISTobility and Gentry of two
Counties, that I was necessitated to yield to the impor-
tunity of one I dearly lov'd, that I might free myself
from the tedious caresses of many more." As, before
she had done with hfe, she had been married to "two
SI
Worthy Eminent and brave Persons," it is uncertain
whether the first or the second " dearly loved " was Mr.
Eichard WooUey, " Master of Arts and Header at St.
Martin, Ludgate." The one thing certain is that it was
from his house, in the Old Bailey in Golden Cup Court,
she addressed the female sex, to whom her books — she
wrote three in all — were to be a guide " in all Relations,
Companies, Conditions, and States of Life, even from
Childhood down to Old Age ; and from the Lady at the
Court to the Cook-maid in the Country." There is a por-
trait of her in one of the books : a large, pompous wo-
man, with heavy bunches of curls on either side her face,
in a low velvet gown and pearls, who looks fit to tackle
anything. And indeed, it must be said of her that she
never shrank from duty. She even stooped to poetry,
since it was the fashion to introduce it in the beginning
of all such books, and her rhymes are surprisingly frivo-
lous and jingling for so severe a lady. " I shall now give
you," is her introduction to the Supplement, which she
rightly calls A Little of Every Thing, — "I shall now
give you some Directions for Washing Black and White
Sarsnet, or Coloured SilJcs ; Washing of Points, Laces,
or the hke ; starching of Tiffanies, making clean Plate,
32
cleaning of Gold and Silver Lace, washing Silk Stock-
ings, adorning of Closets with several pretty Fancies;
things excellent to keep the Hands "White and Face and
Fyes clear; how to make Transparent Work, and the
Colours thereto belonging; also Puff Work; some more
Eeceipts for Preserving and cookery; some Remedies
for snch Ailments as are incident to all People; as Corns,
Sore Fyes, Cut Fingers, Bruises, Bleeding at JVose ; all
these you may help by my directions, with a small mat-
ter of cost ; whereas else you may be at a great charge
and long Trouble, and perhaps endanger your Fyes or
Limbs. I shall give you none but such things as I have
had many years experience of with good success, I
praise God."
]S"or does this exhaust her resources. She offers, for " a
reasonable Gratuity," to jBnd good places for servants
who wiU call upon her at Golden Cup Court. She is as
full of stories of the astounding cures she has wrought
as the manufacturer of a patent pill. She writes letters
to serve as models, so many does she meet with that she
could tear as she reads, " they are so full of impertiaency
and so tedious." She has advice for parents and children
which " may prevent much wickedness for the future."
S3
She teaches waxwork. On one page she is dressing the
hearth for smnmer time ; on the next playing the art
master, for she has seen " such ridiculous things done
as is an abomination to an Artist to behold." As for ex-
ample : " You may find in some Pieces, Abraham and
Sarah, and many other Persons of Old Time, cloathed
as they go now adaies, and truly sometimes worse." And
that the female sex — and, as we know from the exam-
ples of Mrs. Pepys and Pegg Penn, the female sex was
then busy painting — may not f aU into similar error, she
informs them of both the visage and habit of the heroes
they, in their modesty, wiU be most apt to paint. Thus,
" If you work Jupiter, the Imperial feigned God, He must
have long Black-Curled hair, a Purple Garment trimmed
with Gold, and sitting upon a Golden Throne, with bright
yellow Clouds about him ; " or, if it be Hymen, the God
of Marriage, you must work him "with long YeUow Hair
in a Purple or Saffron-Coloured Mantle." There was
nothing this ornament to her sex was afraid to teach.
To judge from the condition of my copy of The Queen-
Like Closet, she was not unappreciated. The title-page
has gone ; the dog's-ears and stains and tatters might
make one weep, were they not such an admirable testi-
34
monial. In 1678 it was presented to Mary Halfpenny
by " Brother John Halfpenny when he was at Trinity
College," and the fly-leaves are covered with her own
recipes for syllabubs and gooseberry wine, for orange
pudding and "plane" cake; and there is on one page
a valuable note from her, to the effect that the tune of
mushrooms is about the middle of September. Later, at
some unknown date, the book became the property of
Anna, Warden ; and about the middle of the next century
it answered the purpose of family Bible to the Keeling
family, so that I know to the hour when Thomas and
Rebecca, children of James and Rebecca, were bom, —
destined to grow up and prosper, I hope, imder the large
and benevolent guidance of Hannah Woolley. I have
never had the luck of the French collector who picked
up Rousseau's copy of the Imitation of Christ, with the
famous periwinkle from Les Charmettes pressed between
the pages. But I prize even these modest names and
notes on a fly-leaf or a margin; for me, they add a dis-
tinctly personal charm to the shabby little old cookery
book.
Personal charm enough it has in itself, you might say,
when it belongs to the seventeeiath century. The eigh-
35
teenth-century books are not without fascination and
character, but they have lost something of the fresh-
ness, the naivete, the exuberance, of youth; the style is
more sophisticated ; the personality of the author is kept
more in the background. May and Rabisha, Giles Rose
and Hannah WooUey, are so entertaining in their self-
revelations, they teU us so much of their age, besides
the manner of its cookery, that the wonder is they should
be cheerfuUy ignored, now that Howell and Evelyn and
Pepys are household names.
N:
II
EXT to eating good dinners, a healthy man with
a benevolent turn of mind must like, I think, to read
about them." The words are Thackeray's, and they en-
courage me, if I need encouragement, in my belief that
to go on writing about my Cookery Books is a duty I
owe not only to myself, but to the world.
If I have owned to a sneaking preference for the little
calf and vellum covered duodecimos of the seventeenth
century, courteous and gallant as the Stuart days to
which they belong, I should lose no time in adding that
it is to the eighteenth century I am indebted for the great
treasure of my collection, — Mrs. Glasse in the famous
" pot folio " of the first edition. The copy belonged, as
I have explained, to George Augustus Sala, and came
up for sale when his library was disposed of at Sotheby's
in the July of 1896. This library was a disappointment
to most people, — to none more than to me. I had heard
much of Sala's cookery books, but small as my collec-
tion then was I found only three that I had not already.
Bartolomeo Scappi's Cuoco Secreto, in fine binding, but
37
not in the first edition (which I secured a year or two
after) ; The Dehnonico Cook Book, and excellent it is ;
and Mrs. Glasse, — The Art of Cookery, Made Plain
and Easy; "Which far exceeds any Thing of the Kind
ever yet Published, to give her book its full title. In the
preliminary paragraphs that went the round of the press,
Mrs. Glasse alone received the honor of special men-
tion; in that dingy httle salesroom in Wellington Street,
where, however high passions — and prices — may run,
the group at the table seem to have come together for
nothing more exciting than a sociable nap, Mrs. Glasse
again held the place of honor in a glass case apart.
Everything pointed to a struggle. It would take a
braver woman than I to face the " knock-outs " and
" rings " before which the private buyer is said to be as
a lamb led to the slaughter. When the day of the sale
came, hke royalty at important functions, I was " repre-
sented " at Sotheby's, and myself stayed at home with
my emotions. The sequel is known. Is not the book on
my shelves ? It came that same evening, the two others
with it. " I am pleased," wrote my representative, " to
be able to send you the three books, and aU below your
as
limit, and hope you will be satisfied." Satisfied ? "Was
there ever a woman yet to whom a bargain was not half
the joy of possession ?
Sala, it was currently reported, valued the book at five
hundred dollars ; I paid but fifty. It was not because
he overestimated its rarity. The first edition is almost
as rare as he thought. On the fly-leaf of his copy he
wrote, July, 1876, that only three others were known to
be in existence : one at the British Museiim, a second
at the Bodleian, and a third in the library of a country
clergyman. Since then only two others, to my know-
ledge, have materialized. But Sala was a vandal ; his
copy was evidently in a shocking state when he found
it, in a barrow in a South London slum according to the
legend, and he had the battered and torn pages mended,
and the book bound in substantial and expensive, if in-
appropriate binding. So far, so good. Still he also had
it interleaved. He seems to have believed that his own
trivial newspaper correspondence on the subject, care-
fully pasted in, would increase its value. How often have
I looked at the book and decided, at whatever cost, to
get rid of the interleaving and the newspaper clippings,
an insult ahke to Mrs. Glasse and myself ! How often
89
have I decided that to reduce it to its original slim-
nees would be to destroy its pedigree ; not a very distin-
guished pedigree, but still the copy was known m the
auction room as Sala's, and, therefore, as Sala's must it
not remain ? Whoever can settle this problem for me
will lift a burden of responsibihty from shoulders not
strong enough to bear it.
Now I have the first edition, I do not mind admitting
that no other treatise on cookery owes its reputation so
httle to merit, so much to chance. It was popular in
its own day, I grant you. The Biographical Diction-
ary says that, except the Bible, it had the greatest sale
in the language. It went into edition after edition.
There are ten in the British Museum. I own six myself,
though I vowed that the first sufficed for my wants.
The book was repubhshed in Edinburgh. It was revived
as late as 1852, perhaps later still, for all I as yet know.
But almost aU the eighteenth-century books shared its
popularity, — only the Biographical Dictionary has not
happened to hear of them. I have The Compleat
Housewife, by E. Smith, in the eighteenth edition ; I
have Elizabeth Moxon's Enghsh Housewife, in the thir-
teenth ; I have John Parley's London Art of Cookery,
40
in the eleventh, and I might go on through a list of
titles and authors long forgotten by every one but me.
All are as amusing now as the Art of Cookery, and
were probably very useful in their day. The receipts
are much the same ; indeed, the dihgence with which
the authorities upon cookery in the eighteenth century
borrowed one from the other, without a word of acknow-
ledgment, ought to have kept the law courts busy. Nor
does the manner vary more than the matter. Of most
of the books the authors could say as truthfully as Mrs.
Glasse of hers, that they were " not wrote in the high
pohte stile." Not even her sex gives Mrs. Glasse dis-
tinction in an age when authorship or public practice
of any sort was indelicate in a female. Mary Eale, E.
Smith, Ehzabeth Raff aid, — a charming person in a mob
cap, if you can trust her portrait, — Charlotte Mason,
Ehzabeth Cleland, Martha Bradley, were a few of her
many rivals. And where are they now ?
" Where 's Hipparchia, and where is Thais ? "
If Mrs. Glasse alone survives, it is for one reason only,
and that the most unreasonable. Her fame is due not to
her genius, for she really had none, but to the fact that her
own generation beheved there was " no sich a person,"
41
and after generations believed in her as the author of
a phrase she never wrote. And, indeed, no one would
remember even the doubt at the time thrown upon her
identity, but for Bos well. I know Cumberland also is an
authority for the report that Dr. Hill wrote the book.
HiE, he says, was " a needy author who could not make
a dinner out of the press till, by a happy transforma-
tion into Hannah Glasse, he turned himself into a cook
and sold receipts for made dishes to all the savoury
readers in the kingdom. Then, indeed, the press ac-
knowledged him second in fame only to John Bunyan;
his feasts kept pace in sale with Nelson's Fasts, and
when his own name was fairly written out of credit, he
wrote himself into immortality under an alias." But no-
body nowadays reads Cumberland's Memoirs, and every-
body reads Boswell, — or pretends to. The subject came
up at Mr. Dilly's dinner-table. "Mrs. Glasse's Cookery,
which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade
knows this," said Mr. Dilly, who, being in the trade him-
self, ought to have been an authority. But Dr. Johnson
was of another opinion: "Women can spin very well,
but they cannot make a good book of cookery," Mrs.
Glasse's is not a good book, mistakes occurring in it;
therefore, Dr. Hill, a man, could not have written it. I
agree with Dr. Johnson's conclusions, but on far simpler
grounds. The impersonation of Mrs. Glasse would, ia the
end, have become too elaborate a joke to carry through,
had Dr. Hill been as ingenious and as wanting in ve-
racity as in Dr. Johnson's description of him to George
in. The first edition of the Art of Cookery — the foho,
sold at Mrs. Ashburn's China Shop, comer of Fleet
Ditch, and at Mrs. Wharton's, at the Blue Coat Boy,
near the Koyal Exchange — was published anonymously
in 1747. " By a Lady " is printed on the title-page.
Only later editions, the octavo, sold by innumerable
booksellers. Dr. Johnson's friend Mr. Millar among
them, appear with the name H. Glasse on the title-page
and above the first chapter. To invent the name would
have been no great tax on the imagination. But, by the
fourth edition. Dr. Hill would have had to invent a trade
as well. For in this edition, and in this one only, an im-
pressive engraved frontispiece describes Hannah Glasse
— and if the description is long, it is too inimitable not
to be quoted in full — as " Habit-Maker, to Her Eoyal
Highness the Princess of Wales, in Tavistock Street
Covent Garden. Makes & Sells all Sorts of Eiding
■ "^ . .' ' ' . , ' ' ''
111 T;r, 'J 1 ^f> rkStivi^ifVA-J'itlCT.i 1.1 iS'if,
■\iUv theiii-.-iro/t
iYiUW'WV.
}■/.',
,-rA/-V//.»/.v/
rSf'
Ji^il.Sorfs oi'i'i'iiJ'^^K JtLiices axCIii*;ij> a«IVrij(i jJioTlfakers
■; •'^i?fi'/, f'/U'^^f^f/^^i.*y//^rt^y^'^<''i^' 'fj^'/ •''f'\'''--» r/~.\;^ '^v/*'/ ^^
f'i'r-- Likt-\' iieaJJ Sorfs of\M.i/f|sjerarlr .Drefscs.
48
Habits, Josephs, Great Coats, Horsemens Coats, Eussia
Coats, Hussar Coats, Bedgowns, Night-Gowns, and
Eobe de shambers, Widows Weeds, Sultains, Sultans,
and Cantouches, after the neatest manner. Likewise Par-
liament, Judges, & Councellers Robes, Italian Robes,
Cossockeens, Capuchins, N^ewmarket Cloaks, Long-
Cloaks, Short Do. Quilted Coats, Hoop Petticoats, Under
Coats, All Sorts of Fringes & Laces as Cheap as from
the Makers Bonnetts, Hatts, Short Hoods and Caps of
all Sorts Plain Sattins, Sasnetts and Persians. All Sorts
of Childbed Linning, Cradles, Baskets «& Robes &c Also
Stuffs, Camblets, Calimancoes & Worsted Damasks,
Norwich Crapes & Bumbasins, Scarlet Cloaths, Duffels
& Frizes, Dimitys, New Market Hunting Caps, &c.
Likewise all Sorts of Masquerade Dresses."
More than this. Dr. Hill, thus established on copper plate,
would have had promptly to invent his failure. In 1754,
three years later, Hannah Glasse figured among the
bankrupts of the year; " Hannah Glasse of St.Paurs, Co-
vent Garden, Warehousekeeper," is the entry. He would
also have had to claim two other books : The Servant's
Directory, published in 1760, ahnost fifteen years after
the Art of Cookery, a book I have never been able to
u
find/ and The Compleat Confectioner, published in I can-
not say what year, for my copy, a first edition, has no date,
and the book is known neither to Hazhtt nor Vicaire.
And as a last touch, he must have had the brilliant idea
of opening a cookery school in Edinburgh, if I can trust
" M. D.," who wrote a note on the fly-leaf of my copy
of The Compleat Confectioner to protest against the
revival, in the Times, of the old scandal. This was in
1866, when some one rashly called Mrs. Glasse "Mrs.
Harris." Mrs. Glasse, M. D. says, " hved in the flesh La
Edinburgh about 1790. She taught cookery to classes
of young ladies. My mother was a pupil and fondly
showed in her old age to her children a copy of Glaese's
Cookery, with the autograph of the authoress, gained as
a prize in the School of Cookery." "M. D." at once
spoils her case by adding, " This book did contain ' Catch
* Just as I am re-reading this before trusting it to the post, a
package is handed to me. I open it. The Servant's Directory, or
Housekeeper's Companion, by H. Glasse. The book I have been
searching for during long years ! The miracle I owe, I am proud
to say, to Mr. Janvier, whose intimacy with Mr. Hutchinson, Port
of Philadelphia, has made him sympathize with me in my study
of the Science of the Gullet.
45
your Hare.' " Not before seeing it could I believe. I
have spent hoiu-8 in pursuit of the famous phrase, or, at
least, the reason of the misquotation, in the hope that
success might, forever after, hnk my name with that of
Hannah Glasse. But I can come no nearer to the clue
than the " First Case your hare," found in every cook-
ery book of the period, that Mr. Churton Collins has just
been offering as an explanation, and so depriving me of
the chance of being the first with even this obvious
discovery.
Well, anyway, beheve in Mrs. Glasse, or not, the cookery
book that bears her name is the only one published in the
eighteenth century now remembered by the whole world.
An d yet, it is in eighteenth-century books my collection
is richest. They are mostly substantial octavos, calf
bound, much the worse for wear, often " embeUished "
with an elegant frontispiece, a portrait of the author, or
picture of the kitchen, and, I regret to say, seldom very
beautiful examples of the printer's art. Several have
been given to me by friends who know my weakness.
For instance, few books in my entire library do I prize
more than the Collection Of above Three Hundred Re-
ceipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery; For the Use of
Xll
TITLE : ISniEVO AETE DE COODfA, 1760 . . .106
TITLE : DE EE CIBAEIA, 1560 112
KITCHEN UTENSILS, ETC. : SCAPPl'S OPEEA, 1570 . 114
TITLE : LA VAEENNE'S CUISLNTIEE EEANCOIS, 1656 . 120
TEAPOTS : LE BON USAGE DU THE, ETC., 1687 . . 122
TITLE : l'AET DE CONSEEVEE SA SANTB, 1753 . 126
TITLE : LA CUISESriEEE BOUEGEOISE, 1777 . . 128
TITLE : GEEVASE MAEKHAM'S ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE,
1631 132
EEONTISPIECE : THE QUEEN'S CLOSET, 1668 . . 136
POETEAIT OF SLR KENELM DIGBT . . . .138
PLAN OP THE TABLE : COMPLEAT CITY AND COUN-
TEY COOK, 1732 148
POETEAIT OP EDWAED KIDDEE . . . .150
TITLE : PmST EDITION OP MES. GLASSE'S AET OP
COOKEEY, 1747 154
WOOD ENGEAVING BY JOHN BEWICK PEOM THE
HONOURS OP THE TABLE, 1788 . . . .162
TITLE : AETE DE COCINA, ETC 168
MY COOKERY BOOKS
MY
COOKERY BOOKS
JLT was with something of a shock that I woke one morn-
ing and found myself a collector of cookery books. I
am not sure which seemed the more extraordinary, —
that there should be cookery books to collect, or that I
should be collecting them. I had thought — if indeed I
had thought anything about it — that Mrs. Rorer and
Cassell's Dictionary exhausted the literature of the sub-
ject, though I had heard of Mrs. Glasse : partly because
the " First catch your hare," which she never wrote, long
since passed into a classical quotation ; and partly because,
when I first came to London, George Augustus Sala was
still writing the newspaper notes he could rarely finish
without a reference to " good old Hannah Glasse." How-
ever, had I known then, as I do now, that cookery books
are almost as old as time, my principles — and my purse
— were against collecting anything, especially in Lon-
2
don, where it adds seriously to the burden of cleanliness.
But who does go about it deliberately? Mr. Andrew
Lang calls collecting a sport; Dr. Hill Burton defines it
first as a " human frailty," then as a " peculiar malady,"
which is the definition I accept. Certainly I can trace my
attack to its deadly germ.
I had undertaken, in an ambitious moment, to write a
weekly column on cookery for the Pall Mall Gazette,
when my only qualifications were the healthy appetite
and the honest love of a good dinner usually considered
" unbecoming to the sex." To save me from exposure, a
friend gave me Dumas' Dictionnaire de la Cuisine, the
masterpiece of that "great artist in many varieties of
form," to quote Mr. Henley, as it is appropriate I should,
since he was the friend who came so nobly to my aid.
The book was useful beyond expectation. I borrowed
from its pages as lavishly as Dumas had, in compiling it,
helped himself from the dishes and menus of Beauvilliers
and Yuillemot. The danger was that I might borrow
once too often for the patience of my readers; and so,
chancing presently on the uniformly bound works of
Oareme, Btienne, and Gouff e in a second-hand bookshop,
I bought them, without stopping to ask if they were first
8
editions, — as they were not, — so far was the idea of
collecting still from my mind. My one object was good
" copy." But booksellers always manage to know you
are collecting before you know it yourself. Catalogues
poured in upon me, and I kept on buying all the cook-
ery books that promised to be of use. Gradually they
spread out into an imposing row on my desk ; they over-
flowed to the bookshelves ; they piled themselves up in
odd corners ; they penetrated into the linen closet, —
the last place, I admit, the neat housekeeper should
look for them. And yet, it was not until the summer
when I went without a new gown, and carried off at
Sotheby's, from the clutches of the dealer and the maw
of the hbrarian, one of the few first editions of " good
old Hannah Glasse " — the very copy from which Sala
made hundreds of articles — for fifty dollars, and bought
a bookcase for I do not remember how many more,
that I reahzed what had happened, and then it was too
late.
Anyhow, my sin has not been the " unlit lamp and the
ungirt loin." If it be a mistake to collect, at least I
have collected so well that I have yet to find the col-
lection of cookery books that can equal mine. It may
be put to shame when I consult M. Georges Yicaire's
Bibliographie Gastronomique, with its twenty-five hun-
dred entries, especially as M. Yicaire's knowledge of
the English books on the subject is iacomplete, and his
ignorance of the American exhaustive, — he has never
heard of JVIiss Leshe, poor man. But I am in counte-
nance again when I refer to Mr. Carew Hazhtt's bibU-
ography ; for I rejoice in a number of English books
that have no place in it, while it barely touches upon
foreign books, of which I have many. When it comes
to actual collections, I triumph. Mr. Hazhtt speaks of
the " valuable and extensive assemblage of English and
foreign cookery books in the Patent Ofiice Library ; "
but it dwindles to modest proportions when compared
to mine. A private collection in Hampstead was de-
scribed to me by Dr. Furnivall in terms that threatened
my overwhelming discomfiture ; but, on examination,
cookery proved a side issue with the collector, and
though I felt like sKpping two or three of his shabby
Httle calf -bound volumes into my pocket when he was
not looking, there were innimierable gaps I could have
filled. The cookery books at the British Museum are
many, but diligent searching of the catalogue has not
revealed so great a number or as many treasures as my
small bookcase contains. A rumor has reached me of
an extraordinary series left as a legacy to the Public
Library at Salem (Massachusetts) ; but I have not the
money to cross the Atlantic and face the truth, or the
courage to write to the hbrarian and hear it from him.
I know, too, by repute, of the books of the Society of
Cooks at Bordeaux ; am I not just now in correspond-
ence with their bookseller ? There is also, I know, a
Company of Cooks in the city of London, but I doubt if
they own a book, or, for that matter, can claim a real cook
in their ranks. Besides, so long as I have seen no other
existing collection, I can continue to flatter myself that
mine is unrivaled.
The reason for pride may not be clear to the average
woman, who looks upon the cookery book, at its best, as
a kitchen Baedeker, or to the average man, who would
consider it unmanly to look upon it at all. But that is
simply because the average woman and the average man
do not know. The cookery book has every good quality
that a book can have. In the first place, it makes a
legitimate appeal to the collector, and M. Vicaire and
Mr. Hazlitt show what the bibliographer can do with it.
Man, the cooking animal, has had from the beginning a
cooking hterature. What are parts of the Old Testa-
ment, of the Yedas, but cookery books ? You cannot
dip into Athengsus without reahzing what an inspiration
food and drink always were to the Greek poet. As for
the Komans, from Yirgil to Horace, from Petronius to
Lucian, praise of good eating and drinking was forever
their theme, both in prose and in verse. Early French
and English historical manuscripts and records are full
of cookery ; and almost as soon as there was a printing
press cookery books began to be printed, and they have
kept on being printed ever since. It would be strange
if, among them, there were not a few that provided the
excitement of the hunt and the triumph of conquest.
For the lover of the early printed book, there are the
De Honesta Yoluptate of Platina, 1474 ; the Viandier
of Taillevent, — about 1490, according to Vicaire, is
the date of the first edition; and the Coehus Apicius,
1486. For the " Elzevirian," there is the Uttle Patis-
sier Frangais, that once fetched three thousand dollars
in the sales room, and seldom brings less than three
himdred, — prices that impart dignity to all cook books.
For the " Editio-Princeps man," there is the rare Mrs.
Antoniusmota Advulgus.
PIauditefartores:csttari:pkuditeLVcntfes
Plaudice myftili tecfla per vndla coqtri
Pila fit albanis quaccunqj ornata lagscnf s
Pinguc fuura copo limen obcfus amet
Occupat infubrcs altind'mus illc ncpotum
Gorges 86 vndances auget 8C vrgccaquas
Ml Ilia fex vSntri qui (ixit Apicius airo
Inde timens:fumplic dira ven6na;famem.
loannes (alandus letHiori.
Accipe quifquisamas irn'camenta palati:
Prccepca;^ leges:oxigarumcp nouutn:
Condiderac capuc:8C (lygias penitrauerac vndas
Celtus:in lucem nee rcdirurus erat:
Nunc tmtat dexcra vcrfatus Apicius^omni
Vrbem habec:6C tedum qui pen'grinus erat :
Acceptum mottc noftro debebis:8Cipfi
Immortalis ericgratia:laus & honor:
Per quern non licuic celcbri carui fife nepote:
Per quern dehinc fugiec lingua latina ficura.
Imprcilum Mediolani per magiftrum Guilermum
Signcrre Rothomagenfera Anno dni . Mcccclxxxx
vtu.dicxx.menfis laouarii.
7
Glasse in folio, when always afterwards she appears in
less ambitious octavo, — to name but the most widely
known of all. These are not prizes to be dismissed
lightly.
My pride compels me to add (in parenthesis, as it
were, for I had not meant to write about it here) that
I own not only the Mrs. Glasse, but the Ccelius Apicius.
It is, in the 1498 edition, a beautiful book, printed m
the Roman type "William Morris approved and copied
for the Kehnscott Press, the page harmoniously spaced,
with noble margins, a place left at the beginning of
divisions for the illuminator's capitals, and the paper
tenderly toned with age. My copy is in surprisingly
good condition, — not a tear or a stain anywhere. It
has an interesting pedigree. Dr. BlacMe's autograph
and the bookplate of Dr. Klotz, the German collector,
are on the fly-leaf. But it has no title-page ! How-
ever, even in its mutilated state it is rare, and, though
I cannot read it, — I went to school before the days of
the higher education for women, and to a convent, so
that all the Latin I learnt was the Ave and the Pater,
the Credo and the Confiteor, — I look upon it as the
corner stone of my collection.
8
Still, I am not like Dibdin's Philemon, and I like to
read my books. It is another of the good qualities of
the cookery book that when you can read it, it makes
the best reading in the world. For this pleasure I must
come to my shelf of the seventeenth-century English
books; mostly small duodecimos in shabby battered calf,
one in shabbier battered velliun, their pages browned
and stained with constant use. It must not be thought
that my collection leaps in this disjointed fashion from
century to century. Some very rare and quaint six-
teenth-century Italian books are the link between these
duodecimos and the Apicius; but to interpret them I
need a dictionary at my elbow. Besides, they have been
well cared for by the bibliographer, and I want to show
first, what has not been shown before, how delightful
the old cookery book is as a book to read, not merely
to catalogue or to keep handy on the kitchen dresser.
I pass over also the printed copies of early poems
and works, preserved in famous historical manuscripts,
and edited in the last century by Dr. Pegge and other
scholars, in our day chiefly by Dr. Purnivall and the
Early English Text Society. Though I consider them
as indispensable as Apicius, and though I own the
9
Forme of Cury and the Liber Cure Cocorum and the
Noble Book of Cookery, and the rest, they are to be
classed with Charles Lamb's books that are not books,
so difficult are they to all but the expert. Unfortu-
nately, I have none of the sixteenth-century English
books, of which HazUtt gives a Ket of eight. Perhaps
they were issued in very small editions j more proba-
bly, they were so popular that, like the early romances
from Caxton's and from Wynkyn de "Worde's press,
they were "thumbed out of existence." After 1600 the
supply seems to have been larger, no doubt because of
the growing demand, and more copies have survived.
Most of the cookery books of the seventeenth century
went through several editions; not even Cromwell and
the Puritans could check their popularity; and I Hke to
think, when I turn over their thin, soiled, torn pages,
that many people read them not solely for information,
but for pleasure, hke Pepys, that fine summer day when,
his wife safe in the country, he carried his ladies to the
king's pleasure boat, and then down the river, between
the great wharves and the shipping, " aE the way read-
ing in a book of Receipts of making fine meats and
sweetmeats . . . which made us good sport."
10
For Pepys, to whom, as Stevenson puts it, the whole
world was a Garden of Armida, "infinite delight"
lurked as naturally in a recipe as in his first periwig, or
the nightingales at Yauxhall, or a lesson in arithmetic,
or whatever else it might be. For us, of less buoyant
temperament, if there be infinite delight, it is due, above
all, to the magic of the past and the charm of associ-
ation. StateUness and elegance were the order of the
day in the seventeenth century. The men, who ar-
rayed themselves in gorgeous clothes, spoke la the
rotmded periods that were in keeping, — in the " bro-
caded language" of Mr. Gosse's expressive phrase.
And the cookery books are full of this brocaded lan-
guage, full of extravagant conceits, full of artificial
ornament; a lover writing to his mistress, you would
say, rather than a cook or a housewife giving practical
directions. After the modern recipe, blunt to the point
of brutality; after the "Take so much of this, add so
much of that, and boil, roast, fry," as the dull case may
be, each fresh extravagance, each fresh affectation, is
as enchanting as the crook of Lely's ladies or the Silvio
of Herrick's verse. I should not want to try the re-
cipes, so appalling often is the combination of savories
11
and sweets, so colossal the proportions. But they were
written by artists who had as pretty a talent for turning
a phrase as for inventing a new dish. Rose leaves and
saffron, musk and " amber-greece," orange flower and
angelica, are scattered through them, until it seems as
if the feast could have been spread only for PhiUis or
Anthea. And no water can be poured into their pots
that is not " fair," few blossoms chosen as ingredients
that are not "pleasing." Cakes are "pretty conceits,"
and are garnished " according to art." If cider leaves
its dregs, these are " naughty," and a sweet is recom-
mended because it " comf orteth the Stomach and Heart."
The names of the dishes are a joy : the tanzies of vio-
lets or cowshps, and the orangado phraises; the sylla-
bubs and the frumenties, — " all-tempting Frumenty; "
the wiggs and the pasties; the eggs in moonshine; the
conserves of red roses ; the possets without end, almost
as lyrical as the poet's, made
"With cream of lilies, not of kine.
And maiden's blush for spiced wine."
And the drinks: metheglin, — do we not know to the
day the date of Pepys' first "brave cup" of it? —
m
meath, hydromel, hypocras, — a word that carries one
to the GuildhaU buttery, a certain Lord Mayor's Day,
where Pepys is gayly tippUng; hypocras "being to the
best of my present judgment only a mixed compound
drink, and not any wine," which he had forsworn by
solemn vow. " If I am mistaken, God forgive me ! but
I hope and do think I am not." Who would not share
Pepys' easy conscience? Hypocras was "only," Dr.
Twin's way, a strong compound of spice and herbs and
sugar steeped for days in a gallon of good Khenish
wine; in very good claret wine, Giles Eose's way.
All the cookery books of the century are written in this
brocaded language, all reveal the same pleasant fancy,
all contain the same pretty dishes and strange drinks.
But still, they have their differences that divide them '
into three distinct classes. Many are simply the old fam-
ily manuscript collection of recipes, at that period com-
mon in every household of importance, put into print;
to a few the master cook gives the authority of his name
and experience; while there are others in which cook-
ery is but one of several arts " exposed " by the accom-
plished women, to whom curing leprosy was as simple as
cooking a dinner, killing rats as ordinary a pastime as
IS
making wax flowers, and who had altogether attained a
degree of omniscience that the modern contributor to
a ladies' paper might well envy.
The old manuscript collection of recipes has that touch
of romance we feel in a bit of half -worn embroidery or
a faded sampler. The fragrance of rosemary and thyme
lingers about its leaves. It is full of memories of the
stilh'oom and the cool, spacious pantry. I have two or
three, bought before I reahzed into what depths of bank-
ruptcy I should plunge if I added manuscripts to my
printed books. I have seen many others. In all, the
tone and quality of the paper would make the etcher
sigh for the waste, while the handwriting — sometimes
prim, sometimes distinguished, sometimes sprawhng —
represents generations of careful housewives. The col-
lection, evidently, has grown at hap-hazard: the new
dish eaten at a neighbor's, jotted down before its secret
is forgotten; the new recipe brought by a friend, en-
tered while she is still by to answer for its accuracy.
The style is easy and confidential; it abounds in little
asides and parentheses; and always credit is given
where credit is due ! This, you are assured, is " Lady
Dorchester's cake " or " Lady Pitzharding's nun's bis-
u
ket; " these are " Lady Kent's brown Almonds " or
" Lady Compton's preserved Barf ord pipins ; " and you
must not mistake for any other " Mrs. Oldfield's lemon
cream " or " Mrs. Brereton's colours for marble cake."
Now and then, as if to lend a professional air, a famous
chef is cited, — Bartolomeo Scappi or Robert May, —
but this is seldom. And as a housekeeper, in those days,
had to know how to relieve an indigestion as well as
how to make the dish that caused it; as she was, in a
word, the family or village doctor, medical prescriptions
are mingled with the recipes. As like as not, a cake or
cream is wedged between " Aqua Mirabilis, Sir Kellam
Digby's way," and "A most excellent Water for ye
Stone; " or an " Arrangement of Cucumbers" separates
Dr. Graves's " Receipt for Convulsion Fitts " from " A
Plague Water."
In the printed books of the seventeenth century there is
an attempt at classification. " Incomparable Secrets in
Physick and Chirurgery," if revealed, form a section
apart; but in other respects those I have put in the first
class share the characteristics of the manuscripts. Their
titles at once point to their origin. Almost all are Closets
or Cabinets opened. There are exceptions. I have a
THE
COMPLEAT
COOK.
Expertly prefcribing the
moft ready waycs,
ritahan^
WhethcrX5/>d»i]J&j
cor French,
For dreffing o£F/e/7;',and Fifh^
Ordennsof Sauces^ ormaking-
O F
PASTRY.
Louv om
Printed (or Nath. Brook at the]
An^el'mCortt-hill^ 1655.
15
fascinating Compleat Cook, a tiny volume, neatly bound
in calf, "expertly prescribing the most ready wayes, whe-
ther Itahan, Spanish, or French, For dressing of Flesh
and Fish, Ordering of Sauces, or making of Pastry,"
which was printed for Nathaniel Brook, the great pub-
hsher of cookery books, at the Angel in Cornhill, 1655.
I have also two Dehghts : one " printed by R. Y. and are
to bee sold by James Boler 1632," with a sadly defaced
title-page, upon which little is legible save the sage
advice, " Reade, practise, and Censure ; " and another
of 1683, " printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of
the black Bear in St. Pauls Churchyard." I have also a
Pearl of Practice, and Hartman's True Preserver and
Restorer of Health. But Closet or Cabmet is the more
frequent title. When the name of the author does not
appear, it is usually the Queen's Delight of which there is
question, the Queen's Closet or Cabinet which is opened.
In my first edition of The Queen's Closet Opened, pub-
hshed by the same pubhsher, ISTathaniel Brook, and ia the
same year, 1655, as The Compleat Cook, the title-page
states that these are the Incomparable Secrets " as they
were presented to the Queen by the most Experienced
Persons of our times, many whereof were honoured with
16
her own practice, when she pleased to descend to these
most private Kecreations ; " and that they were " Tran-
scribed from the true Copies of her Majesties own Re-
ceipt Books, by W. M. one of her late servants." In my
later edition of 1668, a portrait of Henrietta Maria, —
most hkely a copy from Hollar, — severe in feature and
drees, faces the title-page, much to my satisfaction; for,
if the book turns up every now and then in booksellers'
catalogues, mine is the only copy in which I have yet
seen the portrait. When the name of the author does
appear, it is usually one of great distinction. There is a
" Ladies Cabinet Opened by the Rt Hon. and Learned
Chymist, Lord Ruthven, containing Many Rare Secrets
and Rich Ornaments of several kindes and different
Uses." My copy, published in 1655, by Bedell and Col-
lins, at the Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street, is, alas, a
second edition; 1639 is the year of the first. But the
second has the advantage of containing the most gallant
of prefaces. " Courteous Ladies," it begins ; and it ends,
" I shall thus leave you at Hberty as Lovers in Gardens,
to follow your own fancies. Take what you like, and de-
light in your choice, and leave what you hst to him whose
labour is not lost if anything please." Another Closet,
QiaEENs" CLOSET I
OPENED-
Incomparable Secrets in
Thyfick^ Cbimrgery, Tre-
ftrving^ Candying^ and Ceokerj 5
As they were prefcnted to the
QJU EE D^
By them oft Experienced Pcrfons of
our times, many whereof were honoa.
red Wfirh her own prafticc, when (he
pleafed Co defcend to ihefe more private
Recreations.
Never before fuhltj^ed.
Tranfcribcd from the true Copies of her
MAJESTIES own Receipt- Books,
by w.M. one of her late I'crvants.
Fivitfo^funer* iHrtw,-
Printed for 7^thaniel Breok^ at the Attget
Ii'rintea ror jxjthantei ttroon^ a
in Cernhill, 1653;.
17
"Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of
Metheglin, Cherry- Wine, etc., together with Excellent
Directions for Cookery," was opened by no less a person
than Sir Kenelm Digby, whose " name does suflSciently
auspicate the Work," as his son, who published it, writes
in an inimitable preface. As he appears in Yandyck's
portrait. Sir Kenelm Digby is so very elegant with his
shining armor, so very intellectual with his broad expanse
of forehead, that one would as soon expect to hear of
Lord Sahsbury or Mr. Balfour writing a cookery book.
His Closet has no place in Vicaire's BibUography, nor
in HazHtt's; I have often wondered why; for, of all, it
is my favorite. I agree with his delightful son that it
" needs no Rhetorical Floscules to set it off," so pleasant
is the thought of this " arrant mountebank," as Evelyn
called him, — this " romantic giant," as later kinder crit-
ics have it, — in the intervals between his duties as chan-
cellor to the queen mother, and his intrigues for the
Church, and his adventures as Theagenes, and his studies
as astrologer, and his practice as amateur physician, sit-
ting quietly at his desk writing out his recipes, as care-
fully as any master cook or scrupulous housewife.
IS'ot only are these Closets and Cabinets and Dehghts as
18
sweet with rosemary and thyme and musk as the manu-
scripts; they are as exact in referring every dish to its
proper authority, they retain the tone of intimacy, they
abound in personal confidences. " My Lady Middlesex
makes Syllabubs for little glasses with spouts, thus," you
read in one collection; in another, " My Lady Glin useth
her Yenison Pasties" in such and such a fashion; in a
third, that "this is the way the Countess de Penalva
makes Portuguez eggs for the Queen." The adjectives
have the value of a personal recommendation : " The
most kindley way to preserve plums, cherries, and goose-
berries;" "A most Excellent Sirup of Violets both in
taste and tincture; " " A singular Manner of making the
Sirup of Roses ; " " another sort of Marmalade very com-
fortable for any Lord or Lady Whatsoever; " " An ex-
cellent conceit upon the kernels of dry Walnuts." The
medicines receive equal tenderness : "An exceeding fine
Pill used for the Gout; " " a delicate Stove to sweat in; "
" The Gift of God, praise be to Him, for all manners of
sores; " "A Precious Water to Revive the Spirits." Who
would not swallow a dozen such pills and gifts and wa-
ters, or sweat a dozen times in such a stove, without a
murmur ! But it is the confidential manner that I adore.
19
The compiler of the little vellum-bound Delight is for-
ever taking you into his confidence. He revels in hints
and innuendoes: "There is a Country Gentlewoman
whom I could name, which" does so and soj or " This of
a Kinde Gentlewoman whose skill I doe highly commend
and whose case I do greatly pity ; " and you divine all
sorts of social mysteries. He has sudden outbursts of
generosity : " I have robbed my wives Dairy of this se-
cret, who hath hitherto refused all recompenses that have
been offered her by gentlewomen for the same, and had
I loved a Cheese myself so well as I like the receipt, I
think I could not so easily have imparted the same at
this time. And yet, I must needs confesse, that for the
better gracing of the Title, wherewith I have fronted this
pamphlet, I have been willing to publish this with some
other secrets of worth, for the which I have been many
times refused good store both of crowns and angels.
And therefore let no Gentlewoman think this Booke too
deare, at what price soever it shall be valued upon the sale
thereof, neither can I esteem the worke to be of lesse than
twenty years gatherings." And people think the art of
self-advertisement was evolved but yesterday 1 Sir Ken-
ehn Digby is the great master of this confidential style.
20
If he gives my Lady Hungerford's meath, he must ex-
plain that she sent him special word that "She now useth
(and liketh better) a second Decoction of Herbs," which
he also conscientiously records. If he recommends a sec-
ond meath, it is because a certain chief burgomaster of
Antwerp, for many years, drank it, and nothing else, " at
meals and all times, even for pledging of Healths. And
though he was of an extraordinary vigour every way, and
had every year a child, had always a great appetite and
good digestion, and yet was not fat." He is at pains to
assure you that though Mr. Webbe, probably a master
cook, did use to put in a few cloves and mace in the king's
meath, "the King did not care for them; " that the " Hy-
dromel, as I made it weak for the Queen Mother was
exceedingly liked by everybody; " that Sir Edward Bain-
ton's metheglin, " My Lord of Portland (who gave it me)
saith was the best he ever drank;" that for his strange
dish of tea and eggs, Mr. Waller's advice is that " the wa-
ter is to remain upon the tea no longer than while you
can say the Miserere Psalm very leisurely." I sometimes
think, if I were in need of bedside books, — which I am
thankful to say I am not, — I should give my choice, not
to Montaigne and Howell with Thackeray, but to Sir Ken-
21
elm Digby and the other openers of the old Closets and
Cabinets.^
The success of these books may have helped to drive the
English cook into authorship. The artist has not always
the patience to be silent while the amateur dogmatizes
upon his art. There is a suggestion of revolt in the pre-
face Eobert May, the " Accomplisht Cook," addressed
to his fellow practitioners. " I acknowledge," he says,
" that there hath already been several Books publisht
. . . for aught I could perceive to httle purpose, empty
and unprofitable Treatises, of as little use as some Nig-
gards Kitchen, which the Reader, in respect of the con-
fusion of the Method, or barrenness of those Authours
Experience, hath rather been puzzled, than profited by."
Mock humility has never been the characteristic of the
cook. He has always respected himself as the pivot of
civilization. Other men, at times, have shared this re-
spect with him. The Greeks crowned him with gold and
^ I am not sure that I would not add Gervase Markham's Eng-
lish Housewife (1631) and Dr. Muffett's Healths Improvement
(1655). Markham is, perhaps, the prettiest and most graceful of
all these writers. But both books have come into my collection
only recently, since this chapter was written.
22
flowers. He went clothed in velvet, wearing a gold chain,
in Wolsey's day. And in between, during the Eoman
rule, during ages of dark and mediaeval barbarity, the
ceremonial of dinner and its serving testified that the
light of truth still glimmered, if dimly. But none ever
understood so well as he the full dignity of his profession.
" A modest Master Cook must be looked on as a contra-
diction in Nature," was a doctrine in the classical kitchen.
By the middle of the seventeenth century Vatel ruled in
France, and in England every distinguished chef was
ready to swear, with Ben Jonson's Master-Cook in the
Masque, that
" A boiler, range, and dresser were the fountains
Of all the knowledge in the universe ; "
that the school of cookery, that " deep School," is
" Both the nurse and mother of the Arts."
Imagine his dismay, then, when the amateur began to
masquerade before the world as artist. Had Sir Kenelm
Digby ever turned out as much as a posset or a syllabub,
could Lord Euthven, the learned, make a peacock to
look like a porcupine, or an entremose of a swan, that
either should strut his little day as an authority ? Only
the artist has the right to speak on his art. And as Leo-
2S
nardo had written his treatises, as Keynolds was later
to dehver his discourses, so Eobert May, Will Eabisha,
Giles Rose, and others, perhaps, whom I have not in my
collection, began to publish books upon cookery. Jeal-
ousy of the Frenchman may have been an additional in-
centive. France had already the reputation for delicate
dining which she has never lost, and the noble lord or
lady who patronized the young apprentice sent him for
his training across the Channel. May and Rabisha had
both served their term in French households. But it was
another matter when the French chef's book was trans-
lated into Enghsh, and threatened to rob the Enghsh
cook of his glory at home. May's preface is full of sneers
at the " Epigram Dishes " with which the French "have
bewitched some of the Gallants of our Nation^
Whatever the cook's motive in writing, he gave his book
a character all its own. The actual dishes and drinks
may be those of Closets and Cabinets, but the tone of
intimacy disappears from the recipe; no name but the
author's vouches for the merits of a dish; the writer is
no longer on a level of equality with his readers, but
addresses them from a higher plane, the plane of know-
ledge. There is no mistaking the air of authority. Offi-
24
cers of the Mouth receive their inetnictions, and irre-
sistible httle cuts of birds of strange shape, and Joints
of no shape at all, devices for pies and pastry, are intro-
duced as a giiide to the Carver and Sewer. JS'othing is
neglected, from the building up of those magnificent —
the adjective is May's — triumphs and trophies, those
subtleties, as elaborate as Inigo Jones's setting of a
masque, that were " the delights of the Nobility," to the
folding of " all sorts of Table-linen in all sorts of Fig-
ures, a neat and gentill Art," much in vogue. And
throughout, the writer never forgets his own impor-
tance. He is as serious as Montaigne's Italian chef, who
talked of cooMng with the gravity of the theologian and
in the language of the statesman. His style is as fan-
tastic as that of the cook in HoweU's letter to Lady Cot-
tington. He "will teU your Ladyship," Howell writes,
" that the reverend Matron, the Olla podrida hath Litel-
lectiTals and Senses; Mutton, Beef, and Bacon are to her
as the Will, Understanding, and Memory are to the Soul;
Cabbages, Turnips, Artichokes, Potatoes, and Dates
are her five Senses, and Pepper the Common-sense; she
must have Marrow to keep Life in her, and some Birds
to make her light; by all means she must go adorned with
Chains of Sausages."
25
The very title of the cook's treatise was a marvel of bom-
bast. Eobert May's — the book was first pubhshed in
1660, by Il^athaniel Brook — must be given in full : " The
Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of Cookery.
"Wherein the whole Art is revealed ra a more easie and
perfect Method, than hath been pubhsht in any Lan-
guage. Expert and ready wayes for the Dressing of aU
sorts of Flesh, Fowl and Fish : The Raising of Pastes ;
the best Directions for aE manner of Kickshaws, and
the most Poinant Sauces; with the Tearms of Carving
and Sewing. An exact Account of aU Dishes for the
Season; with other A la mode Curiosities. Together
with the lively Illustrations of such necessary Figures as
are referred to Practice. Approved by the Fifty Years
Experience and Industry of Robert May, ia his Attend-
ance on several Persons of Honour." Let me quote just
one other, for though it is as long, it is also as irresistible.
The book is WiU Rabisha's ; the date, 1673 ; the publisher,
E. Calvert at the sign of the Black Spread Eagle at
the West End of St. Paul's; and the title: " The whole
Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and fully mani-
fested. Methodically, Artificially, and according to the
best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch
26
etc. Or, a Sympathy of all varieties in Natural Com-
pounds in that Mysterie. "Wherein is contained certain
Bills of Fare for the Seasons of the year, for Feasts
and Common Diets. Wherunto is annexed a Second
Part of Eare Eeceipts of Cookery: with certain useful
Traditions. With a book of Preserving, Conserving and
Candying, after the most Exquisite and jS'ewest manner:
Delectable for Ladies and Gentlewomen." A title, this,
that recalls Dorothy Osborne's coxcombs who " labour
to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense."
The note may be pitched high, but not too high for the
grandiloquent flights that follow. Dedications, prefaces,
introductory poems, are in harmony, and as ornate with
capitals and italics as the dishes are with spices and
sweets. The Accomplisht Cook is further " embellished "
with May's portrait : a large, portly person, with heavy
face, but determined mouth, wearing his own hair,
though I hope he lived long enough to take, hke Pepys,
to a periwig, so weU would it have become him. Below
the portrait, verses, engraved on the plate, declare with
poetic confusion that,
" Would'st thou view but in one face.
All hospitalitie, the race
riFFWi
^y'^Vjiat'^ v'oiiUyt tha uuf.r hut in onefuce
all hiyriti/iliiie tlw nne ,
,£ftw/c' that Jor tlw G try to stand,
wnn-se t/ihlcs -^ wiiole ^Arh comand
ofy{uiureii^Lntu: vjould.rt tnoli fit , :
\ ttiu Jig ht, vcrufe Ma ij.s; bM h'^^hrjict^;^
f
27
Of those that for the Gusto stand,
Whose tables a whole Ark comand
Of Nature's plentie, would'st thou see
This sight, peruse May's booke,'t is hee."
A few pages further on there is another panegyric in
verse, " on the unparallel'd Piece of Mr. May, his Cook-
ery," and an appeal " to the Reader of (my very loving
Friend) Mr. Robert May, his incomparable Book of
Cookery," by an admirer who thinks only the pen
" Of famous Cleaveland or renowned Ben,
If unintooni'd might give this Book its due."
Win Rabisha has but one poet to sing his praise ; he,
however, does it thoroughly : —
" Brave Book, into the world begone.
Thou vindicatest thy Authour fearing none.
That ever was, or is, or e're shall be
Able to find the parallel of thee."
The dedications are obsequious for such great men, but
obsequiousness in dedications was the fashion of the day.
May's book is dedicated not alone to Sir Kenelm Digby,
but to Lord Lumley, Lord Lovelace, Sir Wilham Paston,
Sir Frederick Comwallis, all of whom, with the exception
28
of Lord Lovelace, contributed to Sir Kenelm Digby's
collection of recipes. " The Maecenas's and Patrons of
this Generous Art," May calls them, in a rhetorical out-
burst. Eabisha, on the other hand, pays his tribute to
two " illustrious duchesses," and three " renowned, sin-
gular good, and vertuous Ladies," to whose " boundless
unspeakable virtues " he would do the honor that in him
lies. May was the "most humbly devoted servant to
their Lordships," and Eabisha the " poor, unworthy ser-
vant till death " of their graces and ladyships. But this
was mere posing. The real man in May comes out when
he addresses as "Most "Worthy Artists" the master
cooks and young practitioners to whom he hopes his
book will be useful; when he explains that he writes
because "God and my own Conscience would not permit
me to bury these my Experiences with my Silver Hairs
in the Grave." No one shall say of him that he " hid
his Candle under a Bushel." It is the real Eabisha who
dwells upon the " Many years study and practice in the
Art and Mysterie of Cookery " that are his qualifications
as author, and the duty of " the ingenious men of all Arts
and Sciences to hold forth to Posterity what light or
knowledge " they understand to be obscure in their art.
29
The same spirit betrays itseK here and there in the re-
cipes. "The fruits and flowers that you make white
must be kept in a dry place," writes Giles Rose, or his
translator, " if you will keep them for your credit and
honoui'." For your credit and honor ! There spoke the
artist. Or again, for the whipping of cream, your whisk
" ought to be made of the fine small twigs of Birch, or
such like wood neatly peeled, and tied up in quantity a
little bigger than your thmnb, and the smaU ends must
be cut off a little, for fear of breaking in your cream,
and so you come to be made ashamed." That is the
kind of thing, as Stevenson says, that reconciles one to
Hf e ! The flamboyant recipes, the monumental menus,
are amusing; but what I love best in my cookery books
is the " vanity of the artist " that is their inspiration.
It was the vanity of the superior woman that inspired
Mrs. Hannah Woolley, now forgotten by an ungrateful
world. In 1670 she published The Queen-Like Closet
or Rich Cabinet, with a Supplement added in 1674, that
eclipsed all the Treasuries and Guides and Practices
for Ladies that had already appeared, as it excels those
that, later on, were to take it ae model. It is the only
seventeenth-century book of the kind in my collection;
30
but were the others on the shelf with it, I should still
turn to Mrs. "Woolley as the perfect type of the Univer-
sal Provider of her age and generation. She was sim-
ply amazing, as no one knew better than herseK. Like
Eobert May, she did not beheve in hiding her candle
under a bushel; but where May wrote for the greater
honor of his art, she wrote for the greater honor of her-
self. Even had she pined for the peace of obscurity, —
which she did not, — her remarkable talents had made
her conspicuous since childhood. Before she was fifteen
she had been the mistress of a little school, — she teUs
the tale herself, — where she continued till the age of
seventeen, " when my extraordinary parts appeared more
splendid in the eyes of a noble lady in this Kingdom than
really they deserved, and she greedily entertained me in
her house as Governess of her only Daughter." Then,
at -the death of the first lady, this prodigy was as greed-
ily appropriated by a second, and presently " gained so
great an esteem among the Nobility and Gentry of two
Counties, that I was necessitated to yield to the impor-
tunity of one I dearly lov'd, that I might free myself
from the tedious caresses of many more." As, before
she had done with fife, she had been married to "two
81
Worthy Eminent and brave Persons," it is uncertain
whether the first or the second " dearly loved " was Mr.
Richard WooUey, " Master of Arts and Reader at St.
Martin, Ludgate." The one thing certain is that it was
from his house, in the Old Bailey in Golden Cup Court,
she addressed the female sex, to whom her books — she
wrote three in all — were to be a guide " in all Relations,
Companies, Conditions, and States of Life, even from
Childhood down to Old Age ; and from the Lady at the
Court to the Cook-maid in the Country." There is a por-
trait of her in one of the books : a large, pompous wo-
man, with heavy bimches of curls on either side her face,
in a low velvet gown and pearls, who looks fit to tackle
anything. And indeed, it must be said of her that she
never shrank from duty. She even stooped to poetry,
since it was the fashion to introduce it in the beginning
of all such books, and her rhymes are surprisingly frivo-
lous and jingling for so severe a lady. " I shall now give
you," is her introduction to the Supplement, which she
rightly calls A Little of Every Thing, — "I shall now
give you some Directions for Washing Black and White
Sarsnet, or Coloured Silhs ; Washing of Points, Laces,
or the like ; starching of Tiffanies, making clean Plate,
82
cleaning of Gold and Silver Lace, washing Silk Stock-
ings, adorning of Closets with several pretty Fancies;
things excellent to keep the Sands "White and Face and
Fyes clear; how to make Transparent Work, and the
Colours thereto belonging; also Puff Work; some more
Eeceipts for Preserving and cookery; some Remedies
for such Ailments as are incident to all People ; as Corns,
Sore JEyes, Cut Fingers, Bruises, Bleeding at Nose ; all
these you may help by my directions, with a small mat-
ter of cost ; whereas else you may be at a great charge
and long Trouble, and perhaps endanger your Eyes or
Limbs. I shall give you none but such things as I have
had many years experience of with good success, I
praise God."
Nor does this exhaust her resources. She offers, for " a
reasonable Gratuity," to find good places for servants
who will call upon her at Golden Cup Court. She is as
full of stories of the astounding cures she has wrought
as the manufacturer of a patent pill. She writes letters
to serve as models, so many does she meet with that she
could tear as she reads, " they are so full of impertiaency
and so tedious." She has advice for parents and children
which " may prevent much wickedness for the future."
88
She teaches waxwork. On one page she is dressing the
hearth for summer time ; on the next playing the art
master, for she has seen " such ridiculous things done
as is an abomination to an Artist to behold." As for ex-
ample : " You may find in some Pieces, Abraham and
Sarah, and many other Persons of Old Time, cloathed
as they go now adaies, and truly sometimes worse." And
that the female sex — and, as we know from the exam-
ples of Mrs. Pepys and Pegg Penn, the female sex was
then busy painting — may not fall into similar error, she
informs them of both the visage and habit of the heroes
they, in their modesty, will be most apt to paint. Thus,
" If you work Jupiter, the Imperial feigned God, He must
have long Black-Cm-led hair, a Purple Garment trimmed
with Gold, and sitting upon a Golden Throne, with bright
yellow Clouds about him ; " or, if it be Hymen, the God
of Marriage, you must work him "with long YeUow Hair
in a Purple or Saffron-Coloured Mantle." There was
nothing this ornament to her sex was afraid to teach.
To judge from the condition of my copy of The Queen-
Like Closet, she was not unappreciated. The title-page
has gone ; the dog's-ears and stains and tatters might
make one weep, were they not such an admirable testi-
84.
monial. In 1678 it was presented to Mary Halfpenny
by " Brother John Halfpeimy when he was at Trinity
College," and the fly-leaves are covered with her own
recipes for syllabubs and gooseberry wine, for orange
pudding and "plane" cake; and there is on one page
a valuable note from her, to the effect that the time of
mushrooms is about the middle of September. Later, at
some imknown date, the book became the property of
Anna Warden ; and about the middle of the next century
it answered the purpose of family Bible to the Keeling
family, so that I know to the hour when Thomas and
Eebecca, children of James and Rebecca, were bom, —
destined to grow up and prosper, I hope, imder the large
and benevolent guidance of Hannah Woolley. I have
never had the luck of the French collector who picked
up Rousseau's copy of the Imitation of Christ, with the
famous periwinkle from Les Charmettes pressed between
the pages. But I prize even these modest names and
notes on a fly-leaf or a margin ; for me, they add a dis-
tinctly personal charm to the shabby little old cookery
book.
Personal charm enough it has in itself, you might say,
when it belongs to the seventeenth century. The eigh-
85
teenth-centmy books are not without fascination and
character, but they have lost something of the fresh-
ness, the naivete, the exuberance, of youth ; the style is
more sophisticated; the personality of the author is kept
more in the background. May and Eabisha, Giles Rose
and Hannah Woolley, are so entertaining in their self-
revelations, they teU us so much of their age, besides
the manner of its cookery, that the wonder is they should
be cheerfully ignored, now that Howell and Evelyn and
Pepys are household names.
N.
II
EXT to eating good dinners, a healthy man with
a benevolent turn of mind must like, I think, to read
about them." The words are Thackeray's, and they en-
courage me, if I need encouragement, in my behef that
to go on writing about my Cookery Books is a duty I
owe not only to myself, but to the world.
If I have owned to a sneaking preference for the httle
calf and vellvim covered duodecimos of the seventeenth
century, courteous and gallant as the Stuart days to
which they belong, I should lose no time in adding that
it is to the eighteenth century I am indebted for the great
treasure of my collection, — Mrs. Glasse in the famous
" pot folio " of the first edition. The copy belonged, as
I have explained, to George Augustus Sala, and came
up for sale when his library was disposed of at Sotheby's
in the July of 1896. This hbrary was a disappouitment
to most people, — to none more than to me. I had heard
much of Sala's cookery books, but small as my collec-
tion then was I found only three that I had not already.
Bartolomeo Scappi's Cuoco Secreto, in fine binding, but
37
not in the first edition (which I secured a year or two
after) ; The Delmonico Cook Book, and excellent it is ;
and Mrs. Glasee, — The Art of Cookery, Made Plain
and Easy; Which far exceeds any Thing of the Kind
ever yet Published, to give her book its full title. In the
preliminary paragraphs that went the round of the press,
Mrs. Glasse alone received the honor of special men-
tion; in that dingy httle salesroom in WeUington Street,
where, however high passions — and prices — may run,
the group at the table seem to have come together for
nothing more exciting than a sociable nap, Mrs. Glasse
again held the place of honor in a glass case apart.
Everything pointed to a struggle. It would take a
braver woman than I to face the " knock-outs " and
" rings " before which the private buyer is said to be as
a lamb led to the slaughter. When the day of the sale
came, like royalty at important functions, I was " repre-
sented " at Sotheby's, and myself stayed at home with
my emotions. The sequel is known. Is not the book on
my shelves ? It came that same evening, the two others
with it. " I am pleased," wrote my representative, " to
be able to send you the three books, and all below your
38
limit, and hope you will be satisfied." Satisfied ? "Was
there ever a wonian yet to whom a bargain was not half
the joy of possession ?
Sala, it was currently reported, valued the book at five
hundred dollars ; I paid but fifty. It was not because
he overestimated its rarity. The first edition is almost
as rare as he thought. On the fly-leaf of his copy he
wrote, July, 1876, that only three others were known to
be ia existence : one at the British Museum, a second
at the Bodleian, and a third in the library of a country
clergyman. Since then only two others, to my know-
ledge, have materialized. But Sala was a vandal ; his
copy was evidently in a shocking state when he found
it, in a barrow in a South London slum according to the
legend, and he had the battered and torn pages mended,
and the book bound in substantial and expensive, if in-
appropriate binding. So far, so good. Still he also had
it interleaved. He seems to have believed that his own
trivial newspaper correspondence on the subject, care-
fully pasted in, would increase its value. How often have
I looked at the book and decided, at whatever cost, to
get rid of the interleaving and the newspaper cKppings,
an insult alike to Mrs. Glasse and myself ! How often
39
have I decided that to reduce it to its original elim-
ness would be to destroy its pedigree ; not a very distin-
guished pedigree, but still the copy was known m the
auction room as Sala's, and, therefore, as Sala's must it
not remain ? Whoever can settle this problem for me
will lift a burden of responsibility from shoulders not
strong enough to bear it.
Now I have the first edition, I do not mind admitting
that no other treatise on cookery owes its reputation so
httle to merit, so much to chance. It was popular in
its own day, I grant you. The Biographical Diction-
ary says that, except the Bible, it had the greatest sale
in the language. It went into edition after edition.
There are ten in the British Musemn. I own six myself,
though I vowed that the first sufficed for my wants.
The book was repubUshed in Edinburgh. It was revived
as late as 1852, perhaps later still, for all I as yet know.
But almost aU the eighteenth-century books shared its
popularity, — only the Biographical Dictionary has not
happened to hear of them. I have The Compleat
Housewife, by E. Smith, in the eighteenth edition ; I
have Elizabeth Moxon's English Housewife, in the thir-
teenth ; I have John Farley's London Art of Cookery,
40
in the eleventh, and I might go on through a list of
titles and authors long forgotten by every one but me.
All are as amusing now as the Art of Cookery, and
were probably very useful in their day. The receipts
are much the same ; indeed, the diligence with which
the authorities upon cookery in the eighteenth century
borrowed one from the other, without a word of acknow-
ledgment, ought to have kept the law courts busy, l^or
does the manner vary more than the matter. Of most
of the books the authors could say as truthfully as Mrs.
Glasse of hers, that they were " not wrote in the high
polite stile." Kot even her sex gives Mrs. Glasse dis-
tinction in an age when authorship or public practice
of any sort was indelicate in a female. Mary Eale, E.
Smith, Ehzabeth Eaff aid, — a charming person in a mob
cap, if you can trust her portrait, — Charlotte Mason,
Elizabeth Cleland, Martha Bradley, were a few of her
many rivals. And where are they now ?
" Where 's Hipparchia, and where is Thais ? "
If Mrs. Glasse alone survives, it is for one reason only,
and that the most unreasonable. Her fame is due not to
her genius, for she really had none, but to the fact that her
own generation beheved there was " no sich a person,"
41
and after generations believed in her as the author of
a phrase she never wrote. And, indeed, no one would
remember even the doubt at the time thrown upon her
identity, but for BosweU. I know Cumberland also is an
authority for the report that Dr, Hill wrote the book.
HiE, he says, was " a needy author who could not make
a dinner out of the press till, by a happy transforma-
tion into Hannah Glasse, he turned himself into a cook
and sold receipts for made dishes to all the savoury
readers in the kingdom. Then, indeed, the press ac-
knowledged him second in fame only to John Bunyan;
his feasts kept pace in sale with Kelson's Fasts, and
when his own name was fairly written out of credit, he
wrote himself into immortality under an alias." But no-
body nowadays reads Cumberland's Memoirs, and every-
body reads BosweU, — or pretends to. The subject came
up at Mr. Dilly's dinner-table. "Mrs. Glasse's Cookery,
which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade
knows this," said Mr. Dilly, who, being in the trade him-
self, ought to have been an authority. But Dr. Johnson
was of another opinion: "Women can spin very well,
but they cannot make a good book of cookery." Mrs.
Glasse's is not a good book, mistakes occurring in it;
42
therefore, Dr. Hill, a man, could not have written it. I
agree with Dr. Johnson's conclusions, but on far simpler
grounds. The impersonation of Mrs. Glasse would, in the
end, have become too elaborate a joke to carry through,
had Dr. Hill been as ingenious and as wanting in ve-
racity as in Dr. Johnson's description of him to George
III. The first edition of the Art of Cookery — the foho,
sold at Mrs. Ashburn's China Shop, comer of Fleet
Ditch, and at Mrs. Wharton's, at the Blue Coat Boy,
near the Royal Exchange — was published anonymously
in 1747. " By a Lady " is printed on the title-page.
Only later editions, the octavo, sold by inmmierable
booksellers. Dr. Johnson's friend Mr. MiEar among
them, appear with the name H. Glasse on the title-page
and above the first chapter. To invent the name would
have been no great tax on the imagination. But, by the
fourth edition. Dr. Hill would have had to invent a trade
as well. For in this edition, and in this one only, an im-
pressive engraved frontispiece describes Hannah Glasse
— and if the description is long, it is too inimitable not
to be quoted in full — as " Habit-Maker, to Her Eoyal
Highness the Princess of Wales, in Tavistock Street
Covent Garden. Makes & Sells all Sorts of Riding
f^
5-^'
t^
^^
^
1 . - .r^
' ^- \^:^Mni-^ruxlliT/-''^
':■"•-. •''/^'-'■■' -' ^-.J-Z/.i ,(//. ^"r/^,'/- //'/■////,)'. //,?/■,''/:!,. A\ir/tA-.K
■■. /-VV/."' f>-''/'\-''/r'>\k^^/r//A(r,t/,<-/i'///.i/,if^-<ith.,-/'{///,jn-9^.r)A),
'fyji-t/f/i''' VI 'I. ' i ////// <//.'.'/ '/V .1.,//,// . //,< /, ■ t/,- , ,//tr.'.,/ /;:/;i, ^
-'//(,/.■//;, '/,.,/,!,. '//^ ///^//„/, I /v/^////,.>. ///,',//,'.'////"'/«■/•,■.', ..^.^^
MjJrr tJlP5)C.'tMt lilillMC!-
^f }/:■// /■/ -rfr/'-j/i.!/. ■///-///, //jf.i. \^f !•///.>,, //<^, I /ni /■,:;_, //n//a?l
-■iJISovts oi'.Friii<j5ps JtL.ifeK a-i('li(';tj> a^frGni dio^f.ik'crs
§■:- • Lik»"\' Ji'e a]j SGrS;s oflVL-i/ntiea'arl.' J)refscs.
43
Habits, Josephs, Great Coats, Horsemens Coats, Russia
Coats, Hussar Coats, Bedgowns, ISTight-Gowns, and
Robe de shambers. Widows Weeds, Sultains, Sultans,
and Cantouches, after the neatest manner. Likewise Par-
hament. Judges, & Councellers Robes, ItaUan Robes,
Cossockeens, Capuchins, Newmarket Cloaks, Long-
Cloaks, Short Do. Quilted Coats, Hoop Petticoats, Under
Coats, All Sorts of Fringes & Laces as Cheap as from
the Makers Bonuetts, Hatts, Short Hoods and Caps of
all Sorts Plain Sattins, Sasnetts and Persians. All Sorts
of Childbed Linning, Cradles, Baskets & Robes &c Also
Stuffs, Camblets, Cahmancoes & Worsted Damasks,
Norwich Crapes & Bumbasins, Scarlet Cloaths, Duffels
& Frizes, Dimitys, New Market Hunting Caps, &c.
Likewise all Sorts of Masquerade Dresses."
More than this, Dr. Hill, thus estabUshed on copper plate,
would have had promptly to invent his f aihu-e. In 1754,
three years later, Hannah Glasse figured among the
bankrupts of the year; " Hannah Glasse of St.Paurs, Co-
vent Garden, Warehousekeeper," is the entry. He would
also have had to claim two other books : The Servant's
Directory, published in 1760, ahnost fifteen years after
the Art of Cookery, a book I have never been able to
u
find/ and The Compleat Confectioner, published in I can-
not say what year, for my copy, a first edition, has no date,
and the book is known neither to Hazlitt nor Yicaire.
And as a last touch, he must have had the brilhant idea
of opening a cookery school in Edinburgh, if I can trust
" M. D.," who wrote a note on the fly-leaf of my copy
of The Compleat Confectioner to protest against the
revival, in the Times, of the old scandal. This was in
1866, when some one rashly called Mrs. Glasse " Mrs.
Harris." Mrs. Glasse, M. D. says, " hved in the flesh in
Edinburgh about 1790. She taught cookery to classes
of young ladies. My mother was a pupil and fondly
showed in her old age to her children a copy of Glasse's
Cookery, with the autograph of the authoress, gained as
a prize in the School of Cookery." " M. D." at once
spoils her case by adding, " This book did contain ' Catch
' Just as I am re-reading this before trusting it to the post, a
package is handed to me. I open it. The Servant's Directory, or
Housekeeper's Companion, by H. Glasse. The book I have been
searching for during long years ! The miracle I owe, I am proud
to say, to Mr. Janvier, whose intimacy with Mr. Hutchinson, Port
of Philadelphia, has made him sympathize with me in my study
of the Science of the Gullet.
45
your Hare.' " Not before seeing it could I believe. I
have spent honrs in pursuit of the famous phrase, or, at
least, the reason of the misquotation, in the hope that
success might, forever after, hnk my name with that of
Hannah Glasse. But I can come no nearer to the clue
than the " First Case your hare," found in every cook-
ery book of the period, that Mr. Churton Collins has just
been offering as an explanation, and so depriving me of
the chance of being the first with even this obvious
discovery.
Well, anyway, beheve in Mrs. Glasse, or not, the cookery
book that bears her name is the only one published in the
eighteenth century now remembered by the whole world.
And yet, it is in eighteenth-century books my collection
is richest. They are mostly substantial octavos, calf
bound, much the worse for wear, often " embellished "
with an elegant frontispiece, a portrait of the author, or
picture of the kitchen, and, I regret to say, seldom very
beautiful examples of the printer's art. Several have
been given to me by friends who know my weakness.
For instance, few books in my entire hbrary do I prize
more than the Collection Of above Three Hundred Re-
ceipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery; For the Use of
46
all Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses,
not so much because it is curious and tolerably rare, as
because of the Kttle legend, "Hommage to Autolycus,'
Austin Dobson," on the fly-leaf. The greater number I
have bought at different times, but it is to be noted that
never, hke Sala, have I picked one up from a coster-
monger's barrow, though, for a while, I made weekly
pilgrimages to Whitechapel in their pursuit. Usually
they have come through the second-hand booksellers,
A few sympathizers. Dr. Fiirnivall chief among them,
never fail to let me know of a chance for a bargain.
Once I was offered some odd twenty, all in one lot, be-
fore they were advertised, and I hardly receive a cata-
logue that does not contain two or three in its hst. IS^or
are they often costly. For the price of one Mrs. Glasse
in the first edition, you can have a whole series of her
contemporaries. And so this section of my collection has
grown, until I have over seventy books pubHshed in
England alone during the eighteenth century.
If I were asked to point out any one characteristic they
1 Perhaps I should explain that my articles on cookery appeared
in the Pall MaU, under the title of Wares of Autolycus, and it was
while I was writing them that Mr. Dobson gave me the book.
47
all share in common, I would say it was the busmess-
hke seriousness of their authors. The amateur had been
silenced forever by artists like Robert May and Will
Rabisha. By the beginning of the eighteenth century,
almost all the new cookery books were being written by
cooks. And the new authors were in haste, on the very
title-page, to present their credentials. Henry Howard
(England's Newest Way in all Sorts of Cookery, 1703,
— my edition, alas, is 1708) and T. Hall (The Queen's
Royal Cookery, 1713) were Free Cooks of London.
Patrick Lamb (The Complete Court-Cook, 1710) was
" near fifty years Master Cook to their late Majesties
King Charles H, King James H, King William, Queen
Mary, and to her Present Majesty, Queen Anne," and in
the Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of
the Royal Household, you can learn to a halfpenny how
much he earned in a year. Charles Carter (The Com-
pleat City and Country Cook, 1732), whose boast it was
that he came of " a long race of predecessors," presided
over the kitchens of the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of
Pontefract, and Lord ComwaUis. John Nott (The Cooks
and Confectioners Dictionary, 1727), Vincent La Cha-
peUe (The Modem Cook, 1751, but then mine is a fourth
48
edition), William Verral (A Complete System of Cook-
ery, 1759), — all I could name have as irreproachable
references. A few were not cooks in service, but teach-
ers: Edward Kidder, Pastry-Master, for one, who ran
two schools : in Queen Street, near St. Thomas Apostle's,
where he held his classes on Mondays, Tuesdays, and
"Wednesdays, and at Furnival's Inn in Holborn, where
he presided on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays ; he
also was willing, kind soul, to teach ladies in their own
houses. I respect Kidder as a man of originality, for
his Eeceipts of Pastry and Cookery is vmlike any book
of the same period. From the frontispiece, where he
appears in ample wig, with one hand uplifted as if in
exhortation to his class, to the amazing plans for setting
and decorating a dinner-table, it is neatly engraved and
printed on one side of the page only, the receipts written
out in the most beautiful copper-plate writing. He was
original in his spelhng, too : " Sauceages," I consider a
gem even in the eighteenth century j and he was surely
a forerunner of the modern cockney, when he wrote,
" To roast an Hare."
The ladies were as eager to vouch for their quahfioations.
49
Mrs. Mary Bale, whose Eeceipts were first published in
1708, was Confectioner to Queen Anne; Mrs. Charlotte
Mason was a Housekeeper who had had " upwards of
Thirty Years' Experience in Families of the first Fash-
ion; " Mrs. Ehzabeth Raff aid held the same position to
the Hon. Lady Ehzabeth Warburton, and Mrs. Sarah
Martin, to Freeman Bower, Esq., of Bawtry, — I have
his copy of her book, with receipts in his own hand-
writing on pages inserted for the purpose, with a note
testifying to their origin by his great-nephew. Canon
Jackson ! Others proudly proclaimed their town or coun-
ty, as if their reputation made further detail superflu-
ous : Mrs. Mary Wilson of Hertfordshire, Mrs. Sarah
Harrison of Devonshire, Mrs. Susannah Carter of Clerk-
enweU, Mrs. Ann Shackleford of Winchester. And then
there were the rivals of Edward Kidder: Mrs. Frazer,
Mrs. Cleland, and Mrs. Maciver taught the Arts of Cook-
ery, Pastry, and Confectionery in Edinburgh, where, if
M. D. is to be beheved, Hannah Glasse joined them after
her adventures in the Bankruptcy Court. But whatever
their quahfications, they are to be counted by the dozen,
so that I can but wonder why it seemed so astonishing a
50
thing for Hannah More, Mary WoUstonecraft, and the
other Blue Stockings of the eighteenth century to rush
into print.
The seriousness with which these cooks and housekeep-
ers and professors took themselves was reflected in their
style. An occasional seventeenth-century book, reap-
pearing ia an eighteenth-century edition, may have con-
tinued to enjoy something of popularity; an occasional
new book at the very beginning of the period may have
retained something of the old picturesqueness. The Col-
lection Of above Three Hundred Receipts fiUs its pages
with Tansies and Possets, Syllabubs and Flummeries,
still recommends a dish as "the best that ever was
tasted," and stiU advises you " to put in a little shalot, if
you love it; " The Queen's Royal Cookery is as flam-
boyant with decorative adjectives as any queen's closet.
But as time went on, the pleasant old familiarity went
out of fashion, and ornament was chastened. The Uter-
ary tendency of the age was toward more formal dig-
nity, a greater regularity of form. In accordance with
the mode, receipts were written with a businesshke deci-
sion, a professional directness that allowed no flowers of
speech. Many cooks seem to have forestalled or copied
51
Dr. Johnson in the effort to say a thing as pompously as
it could be said; disdain of ornament led many to a mat-
ter-of-fact bluntness that is appalling. " Stick your Pig
just above the breast-bone," says Mrs. Elizabeth Eaffald
without any preamble, " rmi your knife to the heart, when
it is dead, put it in cold water." "Whoever, after that,
would eat of her pig has more courage than I,
Some sort of order was also introduced into the arrange-
ment of receipts, in the place of the haphazard disorder
of the old MS. books. The change was due, in a large
measure, to French influence. In France, the art of cook-
ery had reached a much higher stage of perfection than
in England. The Enghsh might rebel against the fact,
and they did in good earnest. It was not only the Squire
of Clod-Hall who
" Classed your Kickshaws and Ragoos
With Popery and Wooden Shoes."
Steele deplored the fashion that banished the " noble
Sirloin " ignominiously " to make way for French Kick-
shaws," and he held a French ragout to be " as perni-
cious to the Stomach as a glass of spirits." " What work
would our countrymen have made at Blenheim and
EamiUies, if they had been fed with fricassees and ra-
52
gouts ? " he asks. It was the " parcel of Kickshaws con-
trived by a French cook " that gave the finishing touch
to Matthew Bramble's displeasure with the wife of his
friend Baynard. " Their meals are gross," was one of
Dr. Johnson's first entries in the Diary of his httle Tour
in Prance, proving forever that he was not the " man of
very nice discernment in the science of cookery " that
Boswell thought him. And, at home, was it not of a cer-
tain nobleman's French cook he was heard to say with
vehemence, " I 'd throw such a rascal into the river " ?
The English cooks were as outspoken. Mrs. Glasse's
Preface is a protest against "the blind Folly of this
age that they would rather be imposed on by a French
Booby than give encouragement to a good English
Cook ... if Gentlemen will have French cooks, they
must pay for French tricks." E. Smith regretted that
in her book she had to include a few French dishes,
" since we have, to our disgrace, so fondly admired the
French tongue, French modes, and also French messes."
Charles Carter lamented that "some of our Nobihty and
gentry have been too much attached to French Customs
and French Cookery," — too willing " to dress even
more delicious Fare after the Humour of the (perhaps
58
vitiated) palates of some great Personages or noted Epi-
cures of France." It was the one point upon which all,
with a few exceptions, were agreed.
But protests were of small avail. Already, in his Direc-
tions to Servants, Swift had found it a long time since
the custom began among the people of quality to keep
men cooks and generally of the French nation. Patriot-
ism, I fear, does not begin in the stomach. French cooks
presided in most of the big houses ; French cooks were
patronized by royalty ; French cooks wrote cookery
books. The French Family Cook (1793) was but a be-
lated translation of the famous Cuisiniere Bourgeoise
(1746) . La Chapelle, who published a treatise, was a
Frenchman. So was Clermont. Yerral studied imder a
Frenchman. And from French sources the most patri-
otic were not ashamed to steal. Mrs. Smith, however
she might object to French messes, must still admit the
necessity to temporize, justifying herself by including
only " such receipts of French cookery as I think may
not be disagreeable to Enghsh palates." Mrs. Glasse,
however she might scorn the French Booby, must still
give some of her dishes " French names to distinguish
them, because they are known by those names," and it
54
matters not if they be called French so they are good.
The question reduced itself simply to one of demand
and supply. But if the " French Kickshaws " had been
so bad for the pubhc as patriots preached, the study of
French books was altogether good for the preachers.
Under the sweet civilizing influence of France the bar-
barous medley of the English cookery book disappeared.
A roast did not turn up unexpectedly between a sweet
and a savory, or a fish in the midst of the soups, or an
omelet lost among the vegetables. Each dish was duly
labeled and entered in its appropriate chapter. Chemi-
cal, Physical, and Chirurgical Secrets were banished to
separate volumes with a few curious exceptions. " I
shall not take upon me to meddle in the physical way
farther than two receipts," writes Mrs. Glasse. " One
is for the bite of a mad dog, and the other if a man
should be near where the Plague is, he shall be in no
danger." And these receipts are so often repeated in
rival cookery books that I can only suppose there were
many who believed in earnest what Lord Chesterfield
said in jest when, six years after Mrs. Glasse's book
was pubhshed, he wrote to his son that his friend EJ-eu-
ningen " admits nobody now to his table, for fear of their
55
communicating the plague to him, or at least the bite of
a mad dog." But it was no easy matter for the ladies
to relinquish their rights to prescribe. If the gentle-
woman of the day still
" knew for sprains what bands to choose.
Could tell the sovereign wash to use
For freckles, and was learned in brews
As erst Medea,"
it would not have done for the self-appointed instructors
of the sex to be behindhand in these arts, E. Smith
cannot resist giving some two hundred receipts " never
before been made public," though she has the grace to
print them in a section apart. Mrs. Harrison and Mrs.
Price both undertake to make " Every man his own
Doctor," and in the undertaking Mrs. Price supplies a
cure that I quote on the chance of its proving useful,
for I fancy the malady continues to be common, so af-
flicted am I with it myself. " For the Lethargy," she
says, " you may snuff strong vinegar up the nose." It
was natural at a time when Compendiums, Universal
Visitors, Dictionaries of Commerce, and of everything
else, were in vogue, that other women took upon them-
selves also, by means of Dictionaries, and Magazines,
56
and Companions, and Jewels, and Guides, to see their
sex comfortably through life " from the cradle to the
grave." I have any number of ambitious books of this
kind, all based on The Whole Duty of Woman, and the
performance of Mrs, Hannah WooUey of seventeenth-
century fame. Take a few headings of chapters from
any one chosen at random, and you have the character
of all : Of Eeligion ; The Duty of Virgins ; Of Wives ;
Of Gravies, Soups, Broths, Pottages. But the system,
the careful division of subjects, now become indispen-
sable, is observed even in these compilations.
The new love of order had one drawback. It gave
writers less opportunity for self -revelation. I miss the
personal note so pleasant in the older books of cookery,
that is, in the receipts themselves. One collection is so
like another I can hardly tell them apart unless I turn to
the title-page or the preface. But here ample amends
are made. The cook did not suppress his individuality
meekly, and, fortunately for him, the age was one of
Prefaces and Dedications. In the few pages where he
still could swagger, he made up for the many where the
mode forced him to efface himself. " Custom," says
John IS'ott, in 1723, to the " Worthy Dames " to whom
57
he offers his Dictionary, " has made it as unfashionable
for a Book to appear without an Introduction, as for
a Man to appear at Church without a Neckcloth, or a
Lady without a Hoop-petticoat." " It being grown as
unfashionable for a Book to appear in public without
a Preface, as for a Lady to appear at a Ball without a
Hoop-petticoat," says Mrs. Smith in 1727, her great tal-
ent being for plagiarism, " I shall conform to custom for
Fashion's sake, and not through any Necessity." Mr.
Hazhtt thinks Mrs. Smith unusually observant ; he should
have remembered the hbrary at her disposal, and, had
he known this hbrary more intimately, he would have
reahzed how httle scruple she had in drawing from it.
She only writes because, although already there are " va-
rious Books that treat on this subject and which bear great
names as Cooks to Kings, Princes and Noblemen," most
of them have deceived her in her expectations, so im-
practicable, whimsical, or unpalatable, are the receipts.
But she presents the result of her own experience " in
Fashionable and Noble Famihes," and if her book but
" prove to the advantage of many, the end will be an-
swered that is proposed by her that is ready to serve
the Publick in what she may." Each writer in turn is as
58
eager to find a reason for his or her help in glutting the
market. The author of the Collection Of above Three
Hundred Receipts is prompted by the sole " desire of
doing good," in which, fortunately, she has been aided
by those " who with a ISToble Charity and Universal Be-
nevolence have exposed to the World such invaluable
secrets," as, I suppose, " how to stew Cucumbers to eat
hot," or " to make the London "Wigs," — gratitude,
above all, being due to the Fair Sex, " who, it may be
because of the greater Tenderness of their Nature or
their greater Leisure, are always found most Active and
Industrious in this, as well as in all other kinds of Char-
ity. O Heavenly Charity ! " — and so on, and so on.
William Gelleroy has learnt during service with the
Lord Mayor that " so long as it is the fashion to eat,
so long will cookery books be useful." Mrs. EUzabeth
Price, the healer of Lethargy, thinks it her duty to show
the world how to unite " Economy and Elegance," and,
as an assurance of her abihty, breaks into verse on her
title-page : —
" Here you may quickly learn with care
To act the housewife's part,
And dress a modern BiU of Fare
With Elegance and Art."
A
COLLECTION
Of above Three Hundred
RECEIPTS
I N
Cookery,
Phyfick and Surgery;
For the Ufe of all
Good Wives, Tender Mothers^ and
Careful Nuries.
By feveral Hands.
C^e ^econU CDittotu
To which is Added,
A Second Pa rt. Containing a great Number of
Excellent Receipts, for Preferving and Con-
ferving of Sweet-Meats, ^c.
r.ONDON^ Printed for Af^y KettUby, and Sold by
Richard mikin, at the Ktn£s Head in St. PauTs
CbHTch'Tard. MDCCXIX.
59
Mrs. Charlotte Mason knows there are many books, but
has " never met with one that contained any instructions
for regulating a table." Mrs. EUzabeth Moxon, like the
modest author to-day, shifts the responsibility to her
" honored friends who first excited her to the publica-
tion of her book, and who have been long eye-witnesses
of her Skill and Behaviour in the Business of her Call-
ing." Mrs. Ehzabeth Eaffald, reflecting upon the con-
tempt with which the many volumes already pubHshed
were read, seems to have hoped no one would find her
out if she boldly borrowed from Mrs. Price and Mrs.
Glasse, and tried to save her own from the general fate
by imiting " Economy and Elegance," taking the very
words out of Mrs. Price's mouth, and by seeing that it
was not " glossed over with Hard Names or words of
High Stile, but wrote in my own plain language," barely
altering Mrs. Glasse's memorable phrase. I select a few
specimens of her plain language : " Hares and Rabbits
requires time and care," she says, with a cheerful disre-
gard of grammar; " Pigeons Transmogrified " is a term
I should recommend to the Century Company for a new
edition of their Dictionary; while upon a very popular
dish of the day she bestows the name " Solomon-gundy,"
60
as if she fancied that, somehow, King Solomon were
responsible for it. John Farley hopes his book is distin-
guished from others by " Perspicuity and Regularity."
But I might go on quoting indefinitely, for almost every
Preface is a masterpiece of its kind, so pompous in its
periods, so bombastic in its eloquence, until I begin to
suspect that if Bacon wrote Shakespeare, so Dr. John-
son must have written Nott and Lamb and Clermont and
Farley; that if Dr. Hill transformed himself into Hannah
Glasse, so Dr. Johnson must have masqueraded as E.
Smith, Elizabeth Raff aid, and a whole bevy of fair cooks
and housekeepers.
There is another trait shared by all these cooks, to whom
I should do scant justice if I did not point it out. This
is the large liberality with which they practiced their art.
The magnitude of their ideas, at times, makes me gasp.
I have been often asked if, with such a fine collection to
choose from, I do not amuse myself experimenting with
the old receipts. But all our flat turned into a kitchen
would not be large enough to cook an eighteenth-cen-
tury dinner, nor our year's income to pay for it. The
proportions used in each different dish are gigantic.
What Dr. King wrote in jest of the different cooks who,
61
" to show you the largeness of their soul, prepared you
Mutton swol'd ^ and oxen whole," was virtually true. For
a simple " Fricassy," you begin with half a dozen chick-
ens, half a dozen pigeons, half a dozen sweetbreads, and
I should need a page to explain what you finish with for
garniture. Fowls disappeared into a Iamb or other meat
pie by the dozen; a simple leg of mutton must have its
garniture of cutlets; twelve pounds of good meat, to
say nothing of odd partridges, fowls, turkeys, and ham,
went into the making of one stew, — it is something
stupendous to read. And then the endless number of
dishes in a menu, — the insufferably crowded table. A
century before, Pepys had discovered the superior merit
of serving " but a dish at a time " when he gave his fine
dinner to Lord Sandwich. But the eighteenth-century
books continue to pubhsh menus that make Gargan-
tua's appetite seem mere child's play; their plates "ex-
hibiting the order of placing the different dishes, etc.,
on the table in the most polite way " would spoil the ap-
petite of the bravest. Forty-three dishes are symmetri-
cally arranged for a single course in one of Yincent La
^ " Swol'd Mutton is a sheep roasted in its Wool," according to
Dr. Lister himsell
62
Chapelle's plates, and La Chapelle was a Frenchman,
and in England enjoyed Lord Chesterfield's patronage.
Cooks may have got so advanced as no longer to be-
heve " that Syllibubs come first and Soups the last," but
quantity was stiU their standard of merit. Authorities
may have begun to decree that " three courses be the
most." But consider what a course meant. Let me give
one menu of two courses as an average example. It
is for a July day, and Mrs. Smith is the artist: "First
Course: Cock Salmon with buttered lobsters, Dish of
Scotch coUops, Chine of Yeal, Yenison pasty, Grand Sal-
lad, Roasted geese and ducklings, Patty royal, Eoasted
pig larded. Stewed carps. Dish of chickens boiled with
bacon, etc.," — that etc. is expressive. " Second Course:
Dish of partridges and quails, Dish of lobsters and
prawns. Dish of ducks and tame pigeons. Dish of jellies.
Dish of fruit. Dish of marinated fish. Dish of Tarts of
sorts." Add a third course to this if you dare.
At first, this lavishness perplexed me. I remembered
eighteenth-century dinners as simple as our own. For
example, Boswell's with Dr. Johnson one Easter Sun-
day, — a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and spm-
ach, a veal pie, and rice pudding, — that seems reason-
63
able. Or again, the beef, pudding, and potatoes to which
Grub Street was invited on Sundays by the successful
author, according to Smollett. Or Stella's breast of
mutton and a piat of wine when she dined at home in
Dublin. " Two plain dishes, with two or three good-
natured, cheerful, ingenious friends," was Steele's idea
of a good dinner. But then there is the opposite side of
the picture. Dr. Johnson's Gulosulus, cultivating the art
of living at the cost of others. Swift, in London, saun-
tering forth of a morning dehberately in search of a
dinner at somebody else's house and expense, and if none
of the great men with great establishments invited him,
dropping in for want of something better, and without a
moment's notice, at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, and he could not
have been a more severe critic had he had the special
invitation which Dr. Johnson thought made the special
menu an obhgation. " The worst dinner I ever saw at
the dean's was better," Swift wrote to Stella, " than one
had at Sir Thomas Hansel's," and " yet this man has
ten thousand pounds a year and is a Lord of the Trea-
sury ! " At the Earl of Abingdon's, on a certain Ash
Wednesday, there was nothing but fish that was raw,
wine that was poison, candles that were tallow ; and yet
64
" the puppy has twelve thousand pounds a year," though
I do not find that Swift went the length of calling his
host puppy in print, more outspoken as he was than
most of his contemporaries. Swift was but one of a large
crowd of hungry men in search of a free dumer which
they looked upon as their right. By food the noble Lord
tamed his authors and secured his sycophants; by food
the gracious Lady ruled her salon. " Whenever you
meet with a man eminent ia any way, feed him, and feed
upon him at the same time," was Lord Chesterfield's
advice to his son. Mrs. Thrale had but to provide sweet-
meats to make her evenings a success, Dr. Johnson
thought. Nor, for that matter, has the bait lost its cun-
ning ia the London of to-day. Now the eighteenth-cen-
tury cook who wrote books was a snob. He would al-
ways have you know it was with the Tables of Princes,
Ambassadors, Noblemen, and Magistrates he was con-
cerned; but rarely would he devise " the least expen-
sive methods of providing for private f amiUes," and then
it must be " in a very elegant manner." He had, there-
fore, to design on a large scale, to adapt his art to the
nmnber and hunger and fastidiousness of the hanger-
on. And here, I think, you have the explanation.
65
But another problem I have hitherto been unable to solve.
When I study the receipts of the period, I am struck
by their variety and excellence. The tendency to over-
seasoning, to the mixing of sweets and savories in one
dish, had not altogether been overcome; probably, I
am afraid, because fresh meat was not always to be
had, and suspicious flavors had to be disguised. Some
" made dishes" you know, without tasting them, to be
as " wretched attempts " as Maclaurin's seemed to Dr.
Johnson. However, so many and ingenious were the ways
of preparing soups, sauces, meats, poultry, game, fish,
vegetables, and sweets, the gourmet had sufficient chance
to steer clear of the tawdry and the crude. Only in
Voltaire's witticism was England then a country of a
hundred religions and one sauce. Soup soared above the
narrow oxtail and turtle ideal, and the cook roamed at
will from the richest bisque to the simplest bouillon.
The casserole was exalted and shared the honors with
the honest spit. Fricassees and ragouts were not yet
overshadowed by plain roast and boiled. Vegetables
were not thought, when unadorned, to be adorned the
most. And as for oysters, an American could not have
been more accomplished in frying, scalloping, stewing.
66
roasting, broiling, and boiling them, — even Swift gave
his dear little M. D. a receipt for boiled oysters, which
must have been not unlike that delicious dish of mussels
one has eaten in many a French provincial hotel. And
what is England to-day? A country soupless and sauce-
less, consecrated to a " Chop or a Steak, sir ! " from John
o' Groat's to Land's End, vowed irrevocably to boiled
potatoes and greens, without as much as a grain of salt
to flavor them. How did it happen? What was the rea-
son of the Decline and Fall? Not Tatler's Appeal to
his fellow countrymen to " return to the food of their
forefathers, and reconcile themselves to beef and mut-
ton." That was uttered in 1710, and had absolutely
no effect upon the tendency of the eighteenth- century
cookery books that followed. As for " the common peo-
ple of this kingdom [who] do still keep up the taste of
their ancestors," never yet have they set the fashion.
I confess I still remain in outer darkness, groping for a
clue.
If, as a rule, the eighteenth-century books, save for
their prefaces, have a strong family resemblance, I prize
the more the small but select saving remnant that makes
for individuality. There are books that stand out with
67
distinction, in my estimate, at least, because of the
originality of the title: for instance, Adam's Luxury
and Eve's Cookery; or the Kitchen-Garden display'd.
(Printed for R. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1744.) This octavo
I saw first in the Patent Library collection of cookery
books, never resting afterwards until I had secured a
copy of my own, and the contents would have to be
more colorless than they are to spoil my pleasm^e in the
name. Now the charm is in the illustrations : for exam-
ple. The Honours of the Table, or Rules for Behaviour
During Meals (by the author of Principles of Pohteness,
1791). Most of the cookery books of the period are
content with the frontispiece, engraved on copper. But
this little book has tail-pieces and illustrations scattered
through the text, described in catalogues and bibhogra-
phies as " Woodcuts by Bewick." I saw it also first at
the Patent Library, and before the ardor of my pursuit
had cooled to the investigation point, three different
editions had a place on my shelves ; two printed in Lon-
don at the Literary Press, in 1788 and 1791, the third
printed in Dublin also in 1791. Then I found that the
wood engravings — it is a mistake to caU them wood-
cuts, and one might as well be pedantic in these mat-
68
ters — are not by Thomas but by John Bewick, which
makes a difference to the collector. But then Bewick's
brother is not to be despised, and the book is full of
useful hints, such as " eating a great deal is deemed in-
delicate in a lady (for her character should be rather
divine than sensual) ; " or, " if any of the company seem
backward in asking for wine, it is the part of the mas-
ter to ask or invite them to drink, or he will be thought
to grudge his liquor." A few books please me because
of the tribute their learning pays to the kitchen. Among
these the most celebrated is Dr. Lister's edition of
ApiciuB Coehus, published in 1705, now a rare book, at
the time a bombshell in the camp of the antiquary, who,
living in the country and hearing of it but not yet seeing
it, was reduced to such " perplexity of mind " that " he
durst not put any Catchup in his Fish Sauce, nor have
his beloved Pepper, Oyl and Limon with his Partridge,"
lest " he might transgress in using something not com-
mon to the Antients." Another is The Art of Cookery,
(1705), in imitation of Horace, by the Dr. Eang who
was described, two years later, by Swift to Stella, as " a
poor starving wit." And indeed, the £32 5 0, said to
have been paid him for the poem by Lintot, could
69
not have tided him over his difficulties as a thirsty man.
It is rather a ponderous performance, with here and
there flashes : probably the verses were some of those
Pope said he would write " in a tavern three hours after
he could not speak." The book was a skit really on Dr.
Lister and his Apicius Coelius that, for the moment,
served the wit as a target for his ridicule.
But, of all, the books I love most are those that make
their appeal by some unexpected literary association.
I own to a genuine emotion when I f oimd it was to Lord
Chesterfield that Vincent La Chapelle dedicated The
Modern Cook, and that to the chef in his kitchen the
noble patron offered the helping hand he later refused
to the author at his door. I cannot understand why, for
La ChapeUe, in his praise of his lordship's exalted qual-
ities, did not humble himself more completely than John-
son when overpowered, fike the rest of mankind, by the
enchantment of his lordship's address. In the Gentle
Art of Toadying, the author of the eighteenth century
could instruct the cook. It was, however, reserved for
WiUiam Yerral to give me the greatest thrill. His Com-
plete System of Cookery is little known even to biblio-
graphers; its receipts do not seem exceptional, perhaps
70
because they have been eo freely borrowed by other
compilers; in make-up the book scarcely differs from
the average, nor is there special distinction in Yerral's
post at the time of his writing, — he was master of the
White Hart Inn, Lewes, Sussex; "no more than what
is vulgarly called a poor publican " is his description of
himself. But his title-page at the first glance was worth
more to me than a whole shelf of his contemporaries'
big fat volumes. Let me explain. By no great man in
the annals of cookery have I been so puzzled as by that
once famous " Chloe," French cook to the Duke of l^ew-
castle, and important enough in his own generation to
swagger for a minute in the Letters of Horace Walpole
and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I had heard of
Chloe, the beloved of Daphnis; I had heard of Chloe,
the rival of Steele's Clarissa; I had even heard of Chloe,
the old darky cook of the South. But of Chloe, a
Frenchman, I had never heard, and I knew, without
consulting the Encyclopsedia, he simply could not exist.
Who, then, was the Duke of Newcastle's Chloe? He
was the last person I had in my mind when I began to
read Verral's title, but by the time I got to the end I
understood : A Complete System of Cookery, In which
71
is set forth a Variety of genuine Receipts; collected
from several Years' Experience under the celebrated
Mr. de St. Clouet, sometimes since Cook to his Grace,
the Duke of Newcastle. Clouet — Chloe — is it not as
near and neat a guess as could be hoped for in the
French of eighteenth-century London? He deserves his
fame, for his receipts are excellent; wisdom in all he says
about soup; genius in his use of garhc. Yerral, more-
over, writes an Introductory Preface, a graceful bit of
autobiography, " to which is added, a true character of
Mons. de St. Clouet;" so well done that there is scarcely
a cook in history, not Vatel, not Careme, whom I now
feel I know better. " An honest man," Verral testifies,
" worthy of the place he enjoyed in that noble family
he had the honour to live in," not extravagant as was
said, but " setting aside the two soups, fish, and about
five gros entrees (as the French caU them) he has with
.the help of a couple of rabbits or chickens, and six
pigeons, completed a table of twenty-one dishes at a
course, with such things as used to serve only for gar-
nish round a lump of great heavy dishes before became."
Fortunately for the Duke of Newcastle's purse, St.
Clouet must still have been with him for the famous
72
banquets celebrating his installation as Chancellor at
Cambridge, when, according to Walpole, his cooks for
ten days massacred and confounded " all the species
that Noah and Moses took such pains to preserve and
distinguish," and, according to Gray, everyone "was
very owUsh and tipsy at night," This was ui 1749;
1759 is the date of Verral's book, by which time St.
Clouet had become cook to the Marechal de Richelieu.
I think it but due to him to recall that he was " of a
temper so affable and agreeable as to make everybody
happy around him. He would converse about indiffer-
ent matters with me (Verral) or his kitchen boy, and
the next moment, by a sweet turn in his discourse, give
pleasure by his good behaviour and genteel deportment,
to the first steward in the family. His conversation is
always modest enough, and having read a little, he never
wanted something to say, let the topick be what it
would," How delightful if cooks to-day brought us
such graceful testimonials !
It is with discoveries of this kind my Cookery Books re-
ward me for the time — and worse, the money — I spend
upon them. I never pick up one already in my collection,
well as I may know it, without wondering what puzzle
73
it will unravel for me ; I never buy a new one without
seeing in it the possible key to a mystery. And when
I consider how much more fruitful in such rewards my
eighteenth-century books have been than my seventeenth,
when I consider the splendor of their mock heroics,
the magnificence of their bombast, I waver in my old
allegiance and begin to think that, after all, this is the
period that charms me most in the Literature of the
Kitchen.
Ill
JLt is when I look at my Latin books that I am most con-
vinced of my sincerity as collector. My English books
I can read and enjoy. But my pleasure in these old vel-
lum-covered quartos and octavos, printed in a language
I cannot understand, is purely bibliographical. Were
their pages blank, my profit as reader could be no less.
But without them, my pride as collector would not be
so great.
They are not many, or it would be nearer the truth to
say they are very few. But these few are of rare inter-
est, and at least one would satisfy the collector of Early
Printed Books. Indeed, since I have been collecting, I
begin to believe that the real achievement of the Eenais-
sance was not the discovery of the world and man, as
historians fancy, but the discovery of the kitchen, so
promptly were cookery books put on the market. The
earliest, Platina's De Honesta Voluptate, I cannot men-
tion without a sigh, remembering how once at Sotheby's
I came within a miserable pound of having the edition
dated 1475 for my own, — such an exceptionally fine
copy too ! However, I take what comfort I can from
75
Apicius Coelius, which I have in two editions. One, the
first, is only eleven years younger than the Platina; and
1486 is a respectable date, as these matters go. When
the first chapter on My Cookery Books was printed in
The Atlantic, I had only the 1498 edition, my copy, as I
described it, quite perfect save for the absence of the
title-page. For long I tried to convince myself that this
absence was welcome as one of the marks by which the
Early Printed Book may be known. Besides, I could
see no need for a title-page, when there, on the last page,
was the name of the printer, and the date, while the
space left for the capital letter at the begioning of every
division was still another mark as distinctive of the
primitive press, though 1498 might be a little late to look
for either one or the other. But M. Yicaire and his
Bibliography refused to leave me in my comfortable
ignorance. The 1498 edition, when perfect, has a title-
page ; one, moreover, with a fine printer's mark, — an
angel holding a sphere. The curious may be referred to
the example at the BibHotheque I^ationale in Paris. But
not even M. Yicaire can put me out of countenance when
it comes to my first edition,^ printed by Bernardino of
1 1 speak of it as the first out of deference to the authorities.
76
Venice. That, anyway, is in order: title-page in place,
the spaces, all except one, filled with decorative capitals
by the wood-cutter; the pages imtorn and unsoiled, only
mellowed by time to a rich yellow; here and there, on
the margin, a note, and once some verses, in beautiful
old handwriting; the binding of vellimi. I have the fur-
ther satisfaction of knowing that it is more complete
than any that has come in M. Vicaire's way. On the
title-page there are three titles : Apitii Celii de re Co-
quinaria libri decern ; Suetonius Traquillus De Claris
Gramaticis ; Suetonius TraquiUus De Claris Ehetoribus.
M. Yicaire calls attention to the fact that the two trea-
tises under the heading Suetonius, etc., do not appear.
But in my copy they do, combined in one essay. And
whenever I am discouraged by the condition of some of
my rare books into asking myself whether, after all, they
are anything more than Mr. Lang's "twopenny trea-
sures," a glance at the 1486 Apicius restores my confi-
dence in my collection.
When I consider what the mere possession of the book
Judging the books by their appearance, I should say the 1498 edi-
tion was far the earlier. Certainly it is the first with a date, and,
I am happy to say, is excessively rare.
Apicii Celii de re Coquinaria libri decern*
Saetonius TraquillasDe Claris Gramadci's*
Suetonius Traquillus De Qaris Rhecoribus;;
Coquinariae capita Grseca ab Apitio poGca hxc funt:
EpimeIes:Artoprus:Cepurica:Pandedler:Orprion
Trophetes;PoIyteles:Tetrapus:ThaIa(ra:HaUciiss
Haac Plato adulacricem medidnx appellac*
77
means to me, it seems unreasonable to waste my time
in regretting the further pleasure I might have, if only I
could read it. But what a triumph, if I could decide the
vexed question as to whether one of the three men who,
in the days of Roman Emperors, made the name Apicius
the synonym for gluttony, was the author, and, if so,
which; or whether, as Dr. Martin Lister and Dr. Warner
agreed over a hundred years ago, the book was the work
of a fifteenth-century student of cookery who borrowed
the ancient name to advertise his own performance. And
what a satisfaction if I could demolish the irreverent
critics who declare the receipts to be full of " garbage,"
— of vile concoctions, with assafcetida for motif ! The
few words I can understand — asparagus, carrots, wine,
oil, melons, pork — sound innocent, even appetizing.
But to argue from such meagre premises would be
about as wise as to criticise a picture, in Morellian fash-
ion, after seeing it only in the photograph.
I have also Dr. Lister's edition, with numerous notes:
not the first published in London in 1705, but the second,
printed in Amsterdam four years later, limited to a
hundred copies. This is the book which set Dr. Bang to
writing his Art of Cookery in imitation of Horace, and
78
filled scholars who could not secure it for themselves
with despair lest they might be dining in defiance of
classical rule. The notes are so many that they turn the
thin little old quarto into a fat octavo. For their learning,
as they too are in Latin, I must take the word of Dr.
Lister's admirers. But, without reading them, I know
they are sympathetic. Dr. Lister was not only physician
to Queen Anne, but her adviser in the Art of Eating,
and it was his privilege to inspire the indigestions it
became his duty to cure. The frontispiece calls for no
interpreter, though the scrupulous housekeeper might
think it needs an apologist. It shows a kitchen with
poultry, fruit, and vegetables strewn over the floor as
none but the artist would care to see them, and cooks,
in the scantiest drapery, posing in the midst of the con-
fusion ; prominent in the foreground, a Venetian plaque
exactly like one on my dining-room mantelpiece, or for
that matter like dozens shining and glittering from the
darkness of the cheap Httle fish-shops of Venice.
With these three editions of Apicius, I am content. I
know ten are duly entered in the pages of M. Vicaire,
but when a book figures so seldom in sale rooms and
catalogues, I think I am to be envied my good fortune
in owning it at all.
79
My next Latin work is De Ee Cibaria, by Bruyerin,
which I have in the first edition, a thick, podgy octavo,
pubhshed at Lyons by Sebastian Honorat in 1560. A
more severe and solid page of type I have never seen.
The quotations from Horace or Yirgil, breaking the so-
lidity, seem hke indiscretions ; an air of undue frivolity is
given when, toward the end, the division into short chap-
ters results in two, three, and even four initial letters on
a single page ; while a capital 'N, inserted sideways, and
overlooked by author, printer, and proof-reader, is a posi-
tive relief as the one sign of human weakness in all the
eleven hundred and twenty-nine solemn pages. Bruyerin
was a learned physician who translated Averroes and
Avicenna, and who was sufficiently in favor at court to
attend those suppers of Francis I., which, he explains,
were served by Theologians, Philosophers, and Doctors.
If it was from this company he derived his theory of food,
it is alarming to consider the consequences to his contem-
poraries. In any case, his book, to look at, is the most
impressive in my hbrary. I have also a graceful quarto,
called Juris Evidentise Demonstratio in Materia Alimen-
torum et Sumptuum Litis, by Maria Francesco Cevoli,
Florence, 1703, omitted from all bibliographies of cook-
80
ery books. But as it is concerned indirectly with nour-
ishment, it seems to me eligible. Besides, it has many
graces of outward form that appeal to the book lover, —
a pleasant page well spaced and well printed, old paper
mellowed and toned by years, a vellum binding ingen-
iously patched.
I may as well admit at once that unfortunate gaps occur
not only in my Latin, but in aU my foreign sections.
Naturally, one's spoils are richest in one's own country.
When I travel on the Continent I keep my eyes open, and
I receive many foreign catalogues. But that is not quite
the same as being continually on the spot. After my
English books, my Italian are the most numerous, be-
cause mine is the rare good fortune to have had in Italy
a friend who was as eager to collect for me as I am to
collect for myself. Mr. Charles Godfrey Leland, who
lived ia Florence, for several years haunted the old book-
shops and barrows there in my behalf, and to htm I owe
an imposing shelf of vellum-covered volumes, the titles
of many in illuminated letteriag on their backs, often
both binding and illumination being the work of his
hands. A few prizes have also been captured by me in
London, and altogether, if I boast of my Italian section,
81
it is with reason. Curiously, however, though it includes
almost everyone of the amazing treatises of the sixteenth
century, and though few if any of the nineteenth-century
books are missing, the two intervening centuries are un-
represented, — the period, that is, to which belong by far
the larger part of my EngUsh series.
But had the selection been dehberate, instead of the re-
sult of mere chance, it could not have been better. The
Italian cookery books were the most important published
anywhere, in the sixteenth century. Italy then set the
standard of cookery, as of all the arts, for the world.
Even the French looked up to the Italian chef as to the
Italian painter or sculptor. Historically, these old vol-
umes are indispensable to the student of the Renaissance.
BibhographicaUy, too, they have their charm : being often
dehghtful specimens of book-making, and, as often, of
imquestionable rarity. For two or three I still look, but
the most famous are already in my possession : the Ban-
chetti of Christof oro di Messibugo, not in the first edition
published at Ferrara in 1549, but in the second with the
title changed to Libro !N^ovo, printed In Venetia al segno
di San Girolamo in 1552, — a little shabby octavo in
cracked vellum; La Singolare Dottrina of Domenico
82
Romoli, a digBified stout octavo which I have in the first
edition, bearing the date 1560, and the name of the printer,
Michel Tramezino, who seems to have had something
like a monopoly of cookery books in Yenice ; the Opera
of Bartolomeo Scappi, another of Tramezino's pubhca-
tione, also mine in its first edition, 1570, — a nice, fat,
substantial octavo in its old vellum covers, but compressed
into half the thickness between the shining calfskin with
which Sala bound the second edition — 1598 — which I
secured at his sale ; II Trinciante of Vincenzo Cervio, my
only copy, Giovanni Yacchi's edition of 1593, the first
having been issued by the indefatigable Tramezino in
1581 ; Castor Durante's Tesoro deEa Sanita, one of my
compensations, as the first of my two editions (Yenice,
Andrea Muschio, 1586), is a year earher than the first
known to M. Yicaire. You see, I enjoy occasional mo-
ments of superiority, if I do suffer occasional humiha-
tions.
My Italian is no great thing to boast of, but, with the help
of a dictionary, I have gradually read enough to learn
that these old books are delightftdly amusing. It is their
close relationship to the church that strikes me above aU.
" Take pride from priests and what remains ? " some-
L A SINGOLARE
DOTTRINA DI M. DOMRNICO
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83
body once said to Yoltaire. " Do you then reckon glut-
tony for nothing? " was his answer. Certainly, in the Italy
of the Renaissance, gluttony seems to have been the chief
resource of Popes and Cardinals, who were no longer
quite so siu-e that man was placed on earth to gather bit-
ter fruit. The distinguished cooks of the period, whose
names have come down to us, were with scarcely an ex-
ception as dependent on church patronage as the distin-
guished painters and sculptors. When they imdertookto
write on their art, their books were pubUshed, as every
title-page records, " Col Privilegio del Sommo Pontefice,"
and as a rule were dedicated to, or at least inspired by,
the priest or church dignitary ia whose household the
author served. Messibugo, a native of Moosburg, Bava-
ria, who settled in Italy and wrote in Italian, was cook to
the Ulustrissimo et Eeverendissimo Signore, il Signor
Don Hippolito da Este, Cardinal di Ferrara, to whom he
offered his Banchetti. Scappi was cuoco secreto (private
cook) to Pius v., and his treatise was written chiefly for
the instruction of Giovanni, a pupil recommended by
Cardinal Carpi. Cervio and his editor ]^arni were each
in turn trinciante, that is, carver, to Cardinal Alessandro
Farnese, whose name graces the dedication. RomoU was
8*
cook to a Pope — I have not yet been able to find out
which Pope — and to a Cardinal. It seems almost like
heresy when Castor Durante, a physician who ventured
to write on the subject, dedicated his Tesoro to a lady, la
Signora Donna Camilla Peretta, and yet she, I fancy from
her name, was a near relation of Pius V.
If there is one feature all these books have in common,
it is a love of pageantry, eminently characteristic of the
Renaissance. Popes and Cardinals, who overloaded their
churches with ornament, who covered the walls of their
palaces with splendid pictiires and gorgeous arabesques,
whose very costume added to the pageant into which they
turned their daily existence, would have had no appetite
for the meal that did not contribute its share to the great
spectacle of life. The simplest dish was transformed into
a bewildering harmony of color, a marvelous medley of
spices and sweets, and when it came to the composition
of the menu for a feast, the cook soared to heights
of poetic imagination, now happily unattainable. It was
over these menus he loved to linger at his desk as in his
kitchen. Messibugo frankly confessed the subject that
engrossed him in the title of his book, which, I cannot
help thinking, as Lamb said of Thomson's Seasons, looks
85
best when, like my copy picked up by my husband in an
old bookshop of Siena, it is a httle torn and dog's-eared,
with sullied leaves and a worn-out appearance, for its
shabbiness shows that generations have had as much joy
in the reading as the Cardinal had in the eating. The
banquets, in which I am afraid lurked many a magnifi-
cent indigestion, covered twenty years, from the first on
the 20th of May, 1529, — the feast of San Bernardino is
Messibugo's pious reminder, — and were designed on a
scale and with a spectacular splendor that fairly stag-
gers the modem weakling. An Itahan Inigo Jones build-
ing up the stage for a masque, one might think, not the
cook dishing up his dinner. A terrace or a fair garden
became the scene, cypress and orange groves the back-
groimd, courses were served to the sound of " divine
music " and interrupted by the wit of a pleasant farce.
And yet, these were the conamonplaces of feasting. Cer-
vio's banquets were far more amazing, or, it may be, he
had a prettier talent for description. Pies from which
outstepped little blackamoors bearing gifts of perfumed
gloves, or rabbits with coral beads on their feet and sil-
ver bells round their necks; castles of pastry with sweet-
smeUing fire issuing from the ramparts; white peacocks
86
served in their feathers to look alive ; statues of the Horse
at the Capitol, of Hercules and the Lion in marchpane;
a centre table of a hundred lovely ladies; a beautiful gar-
den — bellissimo giardino — all in paste and sugar, with
fountains playing, statues on terraces, trees bearing boxes
of sugar plums, a fish-pond, and, for the beautiful ladies,
little nets to go fishing with if they would; — such are a
few of Cervio's flights of fancy for great occasions : the
wedding of the Duke of Mantua, for instance, or the re-
ception of Charles V. by Cardinal Campeggio. This was
the Cardinal who, when he went to England on business
connected with the divorce of Henry VHI. and Queen
Katharine, was charged by the Pope with a private mis-
sion to look into the state of the kitchens of the king and
of the people, so that no doubt he was qualified to appre-
ciate Cervio's most dariag fantasies. But it seems as
if the two hundred and eighteen receipts for fish Scappi
gives must have more than satisfied a Pope whose usual
aperitif before dinner was a visit to the hospitals and
practices there too unpleasant for me to repeat. Scappi,
however, was an artist, and when, in his portrait, the
frontispiece to his book, I see the sad ruggedness of his
face and the lines with which his brow is seamed and fur-
87
rowed, I attribute these signs of care to his despair over
the Pope's hair shirt and all it stood for. He himself
shared the ideal of his contemporaries. Not one could sur-
pass him in the ceremonial banquet he prepared for the
" Coronation " of Pius V., or for Cardinals in Conclave;
not one could equal him in the more informal feasts he
suggested for an August fast day after vespers in a vine-
yard, or for a May afternoon in a garden of the Traste-
vere,or for the cool of a June evening in Cardinal Carpi's
vineyard on Monte Cavallo. And there is the intimate
charm of the •' petits soupers " of the French court a
couple of centuries later in his hght collations served,
one at an early hour of a cold December morning after
a performance of Plautus, another at Cardinal Bellaia's
after a diverting comedy played in French, Spanish, Ven-
etian, and Bergamesque. Whatever Pope Pius might
do, Scappi kept up the best traditions of the Vatican.
BQs book has the further merit of taking one behind the
scenes ; in an unrivaled series of illustrations, it shoves the
Vatican kitchen, airy and spacious as he says a kitchen
should be, the Vatican scullery, cellai', and dairy, and
every pot, pan, and conceivable utensil a Papal or any
other cook could ever be in need of. Domenico Romoli,
88
though less gorgeous than Messibugo and Cervio, less
charming than Scappi, outdid them in ambition. For to
the inevitable description of occasional feasts, he added
in anticipation of Baron Brisse, three hundred and sixty-
five menus for the three hundred and sixty-five days of
the year, and served them in the noble fashion of " those
divine Florentine geniuses," his fellow citizens, who were
masters of table decoration. In his treatise, however, one
is conscious of the mxunmy at the feast. The private cook
of Pope or Cardinal has need to keep his eyes open, he
says with a sigh, and adds that he never goes to bed at
night without thanking God for still another day passed
in safety. The fear of poison haunted him, as it must
have haunted many another man in his responsible posi-
tion. Sala, on a fly-leaf of his copy of Scappi, noted his
surprise to find no trace of poisons in the book. But I
think there is more than a trace in Scappi's advice to
build the kitchen apart from the house that none might
enter unseen and tamper with the food. The ItaUan
cook's bed in those days was not one of roses.
It would be a mistake to think there were no frugal in-
tervals in these old books. Even the prevailing flam-
boyancy had its degrees. The feast might begin with
ctonn» i:o> mormro
89
nothing more elaborate than melon and a shoe of ham or
sausage served together, for all the world as at the last
breakfast I ate in the trattoria at Lecco, where the Mi-
lanese go for a Sunday outing in summer. Simple salads
and salmis had their place among the intricate devices
at Cardinal Perrara's table, and Messibugo himself gives
ten different kinds of maccheroni, not leaving out the
most frequent if least simple of all in to-day's bill of fare,
Maccheroni alia Napoletani. Scappi is prodigal in his
receipts for soups and fish, and caters specially for the
convalescent. Such plain fare as the English veal pie —
alia Inglese— was at times imported, though before it
reached the Itahan table olives and capers had been
added. But stiU, the principal attention was paid to feast-
ing, the main tendency of the cookery book was toward
excess and exaggeration, until the protest, which Du-
rante's Tesoro probably seemed when it appeared in
1586, was sorely needed. It was time to teach, not how
to eat, but how, in eating, to preserve health.
The next book in my Italian series marks a radical change.
If in the sixteenth century the Italian kitchen was para-
mount, in the seventeenth, the tables had turned and
French cookery had become supreme. It is therefore
90
appropriate that my one Italian book of the period should
be the translation of La Yarenne's f amousCuisiaier Fran-
9oi8, since described as " the starting point of modem
cookery," My copy of II Cuoco Francese was published
in Venice in 1703, but the first edition appeared in 1693
in Bologna, and so the book belongs by right to the
same century as the original. Of the century that fol-
lowed, my record is almost as barren. But, here again,
had the choice been left to me, I should have preferred
to all others the books that happen to have found their
way to my shelves. For they include the principal works
of Francesco Leonard!, who wrote them with that naive
want of reserve pecidiar to distinguished cooks. The
most elaborate is the Apicio Moderno in six volumes, to
the collector an indispensable sequel to the fifteenth cen-
tury Apicius. My copy is dated 1807, but the first edi-
tion appeared before 1800. Another is the Pasticciere
air Uso Moderno, Florence, 1797, written when, after
serving the Marechal de Eicheheu, and going through
several campaigns with Louis XV., Leonardi had become
chef to Catherine IT., Empress of all the Eussias, to whom
his French training did not prevent his serving many
Italian dishes. But he excelled even himself in the Gi-
91
anina ossia la Cuciniera delle Alpi (the date carefully
blotted out on the title-page of my copy, and the book,
to my astonishment, unknown to M. Yicaire). It was a
legacy, he says, left him by an accomplished lady whom
he described as the hostess of an inn on the MontCenis,
but whom I suspect to have been one of his own inven-
tions. Xot over his most inspired dish did he grow so
lyrical as over the story of her happy wooing by the chef
Luneville in the kitchen of her father's inn at Neustadt.
He makes you feel there is more romance in the Court-
ship of Cooks than in all the Loves of the Poets or Tra-
gedies of Artists' Wives, and, if only for the sake of the
grandiloquent Preface that tells the tale, I recommend
this work, his masterpiece.
With Leonardi, I bring the record of my Italian books to
an end. The nineteenth century produced a large Ubrary
on the subject of cookery, and most of the volumes in it
I have, but they open an entirely new chapter in the hter-
ature of the kitchen.
My French books have been chosen as kindly by chance
as my Italian. I still wait for the collector's prizes —
Taillevent's Yiandier (about 1490), the Eoti-Cochon
(about 1696), Le Pastissier Frangois (1655), and I sup-
92
pose I shall go on waiting till the end, so extremely rare
are they. But in the history of cookery they do not hold
the indispensable place of the three most famous books
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries : La Va-
renne's Cuisinier Francois (1651), Les Dons de Comus
(1739), La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise (1746), and these I
do own in interesting editions. The change that had
come over the spirit of the kitchen is at once revealed in
the rank of its new patrons. The church had ceased to
be the controlling power. La Yarenne was maitre d'hotel
to the Marquis d'Uxelles ; Marin, author of Les Dons
de Comus, was chef to the Marechal de Soubise, who did
pay his cooks, however other men in his service might
fare ; and if the author of La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise pre-
ferred to remain anonymous, his claim to favor was no
ecclesiastical recommendation, but his own excellence as
cook. Here was change indeed. But there was a still
more vital difference. The Italian cookery books of the
sixteenth century were as flamboyant as the kitchen they
immortalized. In the French of the seventeenth, the
genius of the French people for order, for harmony of
balance, in a word, for style, had asserted itself. Perfec-
tion of form — that is what the French have striven for
L, \}i
TouS '^tc fs cLjru r r J. / /
93
in all their arts, and cookery was no exception. Even
under Louis XIY., who was blessed with a phenomenal
appetite and more phenomenal capacity, dinner became
a work of ai't, admirably rounded out, compared to the
unspeakable medleys and discords, the barbarous profu-
sion in which Popes and Cardinals a century earlier had
found their pleasure. It was for a great principle Vatel
killed himself when the fish did not arrive in time for
the royal dinner at Ch antilly . And the cooks brought the
same order to their books. If La Yarenne's has been de-
scribed as " the starting point of modern cookery," it is
because there is a method in his treatment of the subject,
never before attempted, seldom since surpassed. And
he wrote it at a time when, in England, Queen's Clos-
ets and Cabinets were being opened by titled dilettanti
and obsequious courtiers. Compared to contemporary
English books, it is as the masterpiece of Claude to the
httle pictures that many accomphshed ladies besides Mrs.
Pepys and Pegg Penn were turning out for the edifica-
tion of their friends. He went to work as systematically
as a chemist classifying gases and acids, or as an astrono-
mer designing a chart of the heavens. Soups, Pish, En-
trees, Eoasts, Sauces, — a whole " artillery of sauces,"
9*
— Entremets, were treated in their respective sections
and correct order. His dishes did stand upon the order
of their serving and his book was a training in itself.
Its pages may be turned with the same confidence that
carries the student through the galleries of French paint-
ings in the Louvre — the certainty that all wiU be accom-
plished, correct, distinguished. Nor do I find that this
method put a curb upon La Varenne's imagination, a re-
straint upon the expression of his individuaUty. He was
a man of conscience, who wrote because he felt it right
the pubhc should profit by his experience and share his
knowledge. But though his style has greater elegance
and restraint than Sir Kenelm Digby's or Lord Euth-
ven's, it is as intimate and personal. " Bien que ma con-
dition ne me rende pas capable d'un coeur heroique," he
tells the Marquis d'Uxelles in a dedication that is state-
liness itself, " elle me donne pourtant assez de ressente-
ment poxu- ne pas oublier mon devoir; " and he concludes
with the assurance that the entire work is but a mark of
the passion with which he has devoted, and will ever de-
vote, himself to the service of Monseigneur, whose very
humble, very obedient, very grateful servant he is. Here
and there in the text, he interrupts his technical direc-
95
tions for such a graceful little touch as the advice to gar-
nish sweet dishes with the flowers that are in season, or
the reminder that heed paid to any other such " petites
curiosites " can but add to the honor and respect with
which the great should be served. It is pleasant to find
his successors profiting by these pretty hints, as well as
by his masterly method. It was a distinct compliment to
La Varenne, when Massialot, in the ISTouvelle Instruction
pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits (1692; I
only have it in the 1716 edition), gave one entire section
as guide to the flowers in season, month by month, for
the decoration of dishes, and another to the " delicate
hqueurs," made from roses, violets, pinks, tuberoses, jas-
mine, and orange flowers, for aU the year round.
La Yarenne's book was an immediate and continued suc-
cess. By 1652 there was a second edition, by 1654, a
third. M. Yicaire counts seventeen before he finishes his
hst. I have the fourth, published at the Hague by Adrian
Ylacq and ranked by some collectors with La' Varenne's
more famous Pastissier Francois in the Elzevir edition.
The Cuisinier Franyois never fetched three thousand
dollars. In special binding, it has gone up to over a hxm-
dred, but ten is the average price quoted by bibliogra-
96
phers. I paid six for mine, bought, in the way Mr. Lang
deplores, from a catalogue, without inspection. But I
have no quarrel with the little duodecimo, yellow and
worn, more than doubled in size by the paper of nearly
the same date bound up with it. A few receipts in old
German writing explain the object of this paper, but its
owners, many or few, have left it mostly blank, the envy
now of every etcher who sees it. I also dehght in a later
edition, without a date, but published probably some-
where between 1695 and 1715, by Pierre Mortier in Am-
sterdam. It has a curious and suggestive frontispiece,
an engraving of a fine gentleman dining at a table set
directly in front of the kitchen fire, with the chef himself
in attendance, and it includes other works attributed to
La Varenne. One is Le Maistre d'Hostel et le Grand
Ecuyer Tranchant, a treatise originally published in
L'Eeole Parf aite des Officiers de Bouche, which was ap-
propriated and translated into English by Giles Rose in
1682, with the same dramatic diagrams of trussed birds
and skewered joints, the same wonderful directions for
folding napkins into beasts and birds, " the mighty pretty
trade " that, when it reached England, enraptured Pepys.
Thanks to this volume, my works of La Varenne are
97
almost complete, if my editions, bibliographically, leave
something to be desired.
When Marin wrote his book, a little less than a hmidred
years afterwards, the art had made strides forward in
the direction of refinement and simplicity. Louis XIV.
ate well, but the Eegent and Louis XY. ate better. It
was probably due to the Grand Monarque's abnormal
stomach, which, I have seen it stated, was discovered
after death to be twice the average size, that a suspicion
of barbarity lingered in his day. But with the return of
the royal organ to normal limits quality triumphed over
quantity. I have not forgotten that Dr. Johnson, when
he visited France, declared the French kitchen gross.
But then Dr. Johnson was not an authority in these
matters. If the word of any Enghshman carries weight,
I would rather quote a letter Kichard West wrote to
Walpole in the very year that Marin's book was published,
as a proof that the distinction between English and
French ideals was much the same then as now. " I don't
pretend," he says, " to compare our supper in London
with your partie de cabaret at Eheims; but at least, sir,
our materials were more sterling than yours. You had
a goute forsooth, composed of des fraises, de la creme.
98
du vin, des gateaux, etc. We, sir, we supped a I'An-
gloise. Imprimis, we had buttock of beef and Yorkshire
ham; we had chicken, too, and a gallon bowl of sallad,
and a gooseberry tart as big as anything." Might not
that have been written yesterday ? But more eloquent
testimony is to be had from the French themselves.
Moderation ruled over those enchanting little feasts of
theirs that, in memory, cannot altogether die : Madame
Geoffrin's suppers for the elect, of chicken, spinach, and
omelette ; Madame du Chatelet's with Voltaire at Cirey,
" not abundant, but rare, elegant, and delicate," — and
yet, it was Madame du Chatelet who rejoiced that God
had given her a capacity for the pleasures of the table;
a hundred others to us as irresistible. Or go to court,
where the king's mistresses and courtiers were Yy'mg
with one another in the invention of dishes graced with
their own names, where even the more serious Queen
played godmother to the dainty trifles we stiU know as
Petites Bouchees a la Keine, where the famous tables vo-
lantes recalled the prodigies of Cervio — there too bar-
baric excess had gone out of fashion. I have space but
for one example, though I could quote many as convin-
cing, — Madame du Barry's dinner to the King: Coulis
99
de faisans; croustades du foie des lottes; salmis des be-
cassines; pain de volaille a la supreme; poularde au
cresson; ecrevisses au vin de Sauterne; bisquets de
peches au Noyau ; creme de cerneaux ; — the dimier that
won for the cook the first cordon Ueu. What an elegant
simplicity compared to the haphazard profusion approved
by Popes and Cardinals !
This simplicity rules in Marin's book. Throughout the
three fat httle volumes, the method is beyond criticism.
And he was more learned than La Yarenne, for whom
I could wish, however, that his veneration had been
greater. To make a point of dating the modern kitchen
but thirty years back, when La Yarenne had been long
in the grave, seems a dehberate insult. In the history of
his art, prepared with the assistance of two accomplished
Jesuits, and beginning with the first man who discovered
the use of fire, he defines this modem kitchen as " chem-
ical, that is, scientific." But for all his science, he did
not disdain the graces of style, he did not forget he was
an artist. Let the cook, he says, blend the ingredients
in a sauce, as the painter blends the colors on his palette,
to produce the perfect harmony : as pretty a simile as I
can remember in any book in my collection, given as were
100
the chefs of all nations to picturesque phrasing. But a
wider gulf than learning separates Les Dons de Comus
from Le Cuisinier Fran§ois. La Yarenne's book was
addressed to his fellow artists; Marin's was designed
not only for the officers in great households, but for the
little bourgeois, who, though limited in means, was wise
enough to care for good eating. The idea did not origi-
nate with him. As far back as 1691, Massialot had writ-
ten his Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois (my edition unfor-
tunately is 1714), the earhest book I know, it is but fair
to add, in which the contents are arranged alphabetically:
a plan copied by John Nott and John Middleton in Eng-
land for their Cooks' and Confectioners' Dictionary, and
by Briand, in France, for his Dictionnaire des Aliments
(1750), a pretentious and learned work in three volumes.
Next, Le Menage des Champs et de la Yille, ou Nou-
veau Cuisinier Fran9ois (1710), considered all tastes, from
those " des plus grands Seigneurs jusqu'a celles des bons
Bourgeois," and was rewarded by being not only passed
by the censor of the press, but recommended by him, in
his official Approbation — a rare distinction. Neither of
these books judged by its intrinsic merit could, however,
compete with Les Dons de Comus. Marin was the genius
101
who, giving expression to the ideas of his time, made his
treatise immediately the standard work on cookery. He
was promptly flattered by wholesale imitation. In the
Preface to the 1758 edition (which I have) he complains
that in the twenty years since the first (which I have not),
this compliment had been paid him with only too much
sincerity. And, m truth, his followers did their best to
capture his patron, the bourgeois, to borrow his weapons
against artless extravagance, even to appropriate his
similes. Menon's Science du Maitre d'Hotel Cuisinier
(174:9) owes everything to Marin, to the very glibness
with which the art not of painting, but of music, is held
up as a guide to the cook in the composition of his ra-
gouts, and this debt Marin is quick to admit. But, per-
haps because he felt it too deeply, he says nothing of
the more flagrant plagiarism in La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise,
which was addressed solely and entirely to the bourgeois
of mediocre fortune, and so scored heavily ; while, re-
membering Massialot, the author, with a stroke of genius
denied to Marin, incorporated the idea in his title, an
advertisement in itself. La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise ap-
peared only six years after Les Dons de Comus, but in
the competition that followed Marin was ecKpsed. Even
102
Mrs. Glasse's Art of Cookery, credited with the greatest
sale of any book in the Enghsh language, was left far
behind. M. Vicaire gives forty editions, and yet he does
not know three out of my five. Studied under the last
Bourbons, it was popular during the first Eepublic — An
VI de la Republique is the date in one of my copies; fa-
miliarly quoted by the Romanticists of 1830, the demand
for it had not ceased in 1866, when the last edition I
know of was issued. It was one of the first cookery
books that appealed primarily to the people, and the peo-
ple responded by buying it during a hundred years and
more.
Even after praise of simplicity was in every mouth, there
were relapses. Thus, Menon, who wrote also a Maitre
d'Hotel Confiseur (1788, my edition, the second), de-
nounces the old elaborate edifices of pastry and sugar,
overloaded with ornament and grotesque in design, only
to evolve, out of the same materials, gardens with trees
and urns, or classical balustrades with figures of Diana,
Apollo, and JEneas, or temples of Circe, with Ulysses,
pigs and all. " Quel agreable coup d'ceil ! " he exclaims
in ecstasy, " quel gout 1 Quelle aimable symetrie ! " But
it was just such masterpieces, just such exceptions to
103
the new rule, that encouraged French physicians in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to write on food
from the hygienic point of view, as Bruyerin already had
in Latin, and Castor Durante in Itahan. La Varenne
and Marin, Menon and Massialot, did not bother about
sovereign powders and patent pills in the way of Eng-
lish writers on cookery. It was left to doctors to dogma-
tize on their own art, and lay down the rules for " rhu-
barb and sobriety." Louis Lemery, physician to Louis
XIY., pubhshed in 1702 a Traite des Aliments, dedicated
to M. Boudin, physician to the Dauphin, a treatise trans-
lated into Enghsh, and, in the translation, passing
through several editions, Li 1743, Bruzen de la Marti-
nieres translated the old verses on the medical properties
of meat and drink by John of Milan, a doctor, changing
the title of the earher translations, L'Art de se passer
de Medecin, into the more literally true L'Art de Conser-
ver sa Sante. In 1789, Jourdain Le Cointe published La
Cuisine de Sante, a large book in three volumes, revised
by a fellow physician of Montpelier, and, could Le Cointe
have had his way, France would have been as barren
of sauces as England in Yoltaire's epigram. All these
books I have, and I am not sure that I ought not to count
104
with them M. de Blegny's Bon Usage du The, du Gaffe
et du Chocolat (1687), since its end was the preservation
of health and the cure of disease, De Blegny was Con-
seiller Medecin Artiste ordinaire du Roy et de Monsieur,
and his book, charmingly illustrated in the fashion of the
old Herbals, is dedicated to Messieurs les Doeteurs en
Medecine des Facultes Provincialles et Etrangeres prac-
tiquant a la Cour et a Paris. If the French have got
over the fancy that coffee and chocolate are medicines,
throughout the provinces in France tea is still the drink
that cures, not cheers.
It is as well the books of the nineteenth century do not
enter into my present scheme. There would be too much
to say of the new development in the hterature of cook-
ery that began toward the end of the eighteenth, with
Grimod de la Eeyniere, the EusMn of the kitchen, A
new era opened with his Almanach des Gourmands; a
new school of writers was inaugurated, which, before it
was exhausted, had counted Brillat Savarin, the Marquis
de Cussy, and Dumas Pere among its masters.
In the books of other countries my poverty is more
marked. I have but two or three German works, none
of special note. I have nothing American earlier than
105
1805, but then comes an irresistible little volume bris-
tling with patriotism, proclaiming independence in its
very cakes. I have nothing Hungarian, Eussian, Portu-
guese, or Dutch. A manuscript Romany cookery book,
compiled by Mr. Leland, the Romany Rye, makes up as
a curiosity for many omissions. The only other country
with a definite cookery literature that contributes to my
shelves is Spain, and that, merely to the extent of a dozen
volumes. These are spoils brought home by my husband
from a tour of the old bookshops of Madrid and Toledo.
Few of my treasiires do I prize more than the Arte de
Cocina, though it is in the fifteenth edition, with the
date on the title-page provoMngly effaced. The first
edition was published in 1617, and its author was Fran-
cisco Martinez Montino, Cocinero Mayor del Rey — this
particular Rey being none other than Philip TV. Here,
then, you may learn what the Spaniard ate in the days
when Velasquez painted. As yet, the facts I have
gleaned are few, my Spanish being based chiefly on that
comprehensive first phrase in Meisterschaft, which,
though my pagsport through Spain, can hardly carry me
through Spanish literature. I can make out enough,
however, to discover that Montino, in the fashion of the
106
ItaKan writers of the Eenaissance, supplies menus for
great occasions, but that he had not forestalled the French
in writing with method. His book is a hodge-podge, Por-
tuguese, Enghsh, German, and Moorish dishes thrown
together anyhow, the whole collection ending unexpect-
edly with a soup. But his pious Laus Deo on the last
page covers many sins, and his index shows a desire for
the system he did not know how to achieve. 'No less in-
teresting is the I^uevo Arte de Cocina, by Juan Alti-
miras. Thanks, I suppose, to the law of compensation,
while my Montiiio is in the fifteenth edition, my copy of
Altimiras is dated 1760, though M. Yicaire knows none
earher than 1791. It has the attraction, first, of vellum
covers with leather strings still in condition to be tied,
and, next, of an edifjdng dedication to San Diego de
Alcala, — Santo Mio is the author's familiar manner of
address, and he makes the offering from the affectionate
heart of one who hopes to enjoy the saint's company some
day in heaven. After this, it is not surprising that the
work should have been approved by high officials in the
king's kitchen, and that a point is made of Lenten dishes
and monastic menus.
My remaining Spanish books, in comparison, seem com-
NUEVO ARTE
DE COCINA,
S ACADO
DE LA ESCUELA
DE LA EXPERIENCIA
ECONOMICA.
SU AUTOR
JVAN ALTIMIRAS,
DEDICALE
A SAN DIEGO DE ALCALA
EN MADRID.
For Antonio Perez de Soto. Ano de 1760.
A txpenfas it Don feiro Jofefh Altnfoy Padilla , Li-
hero de Camnrfi del Rey , dende fe hazard.
107
monplace. There is a little Arte de Eeposteria, by Juan
de la Mata, Madrid, 1791, a small quarto in vellum covers
that gives a whole chapter to the Aguas Heladas de
Frutas, still one of the joys of Spain, and a recipe for
Gazpachos, still one of its wonders. There is the Di-
sertacion en Recomendacion y Def ensa del Famoso Vino
Malagueno Pero Ximen, Malaga, 1792, with a wood-en-
graved frontispiece that looks like the beginning of the
now familiar cigar-box labels. But the other big and
little volmnes are of too late a date for my present pur-
poses. Many are translations of the French books of
1830, and they reproduce even the lithographs and other
illustrations published in the original works.
Of course, it will be understood that I write solely of
the books in my own collection, which I am not foolish
enough to represent as exhaustive. Indeed, if I were,
M. Vicaire's Bibliography would betray me at once.
But for the collector the evil hour is when, folding his
hands, he must admit his task completed. As long as
there are gaps on my shelves, life will still hold the pos-
eibihty of emotion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTE
It will be understood, of course, that I do not aim at an exhaustive
Bibliography. I have attempted nothing more ambitious than a
list of my own books, and even that within hmits. I have thought
it better, and more in keeping with the text, to bring it no fur-
ther down than to the end of the Eighteenth Century. For this
reason, I have omitted Eighteenth Century books that I have
only in Nineteenth Century editions, and also modern reprints
of early MSS. I have made an exception in favor of Grimod de
la Reyniere's Almanach des Gourmands, simply because it marks
the beginning of the new period, and helps to explain the limits I
have deUberately set myself. Some day, I may be able to make as
worthy a record of my Nineteenth Century books.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LATIN
APICIUS COELIUS.
Apitii Celii de re Coquinaria libri decern.
Suetonius Traquillus De Claris Gramaticis.
Suetonius Traquillus De Claris Rhetoribus.
{In fine:) Impressum Venetiis per SernardinumVenetum. It
has no date, but is attributed to about 1486. Given as earli-
est edition by most authorities. 4to, old vellum. 30 sheets,
the pages not numbered.
APICIUS COELIUS.
Apicius Culinarius.
{In fine:) Impressum Mediolani per magistrwm Guilermum,
Signerre Rothomagensem. Anno dAi. Mcccclxxxxviii. die. xx.
mensis Januarii. First dated edition, 4to. Half calf. 40 sheets,
pages not numbered. This copy has on fly-leaf the book
plate of " Georgius Klotz, M. D. Francofurti ad Moenum,"
and the autograph of "John S. Blackie, 1862."
112
APICroS COELIUS.
Apicii Coelii de Opsoniis et Condimentis, Sive Arte Co-
quinaria, Libri Decern. Cum Annotationibus Martini
Lister, e Medicis domesticis Serenissimae Majestatis Re-
ginae Annae, et ISTotis selectioribus, variisque lectionibus
integris, Humelbergii, Barthii, Eeinesii, A Van Der
Linden, & Aliorum, ut & Variarum Lectionum Libello.
Editio Secunda, Longe auctior atque emendatior.
Amstelodami, Apud Janssonio- Waesbergios 1709. 8vo, half
calf. Frontispiece, engraving on copper, by J. Goeere. Dedica-
tion, Preface, and Preliminary, 17 leaves + PP- 277 + Variae
Lectiones, pp. 18, not numbered + Index pp. 25, not numbered.
BEUYERINTJS CAMPEGIUS.
De He Cibaria Libri XII Omnium Cibormn genera, om-
nium gentium moribus, & usu probata complectentes,
lo Bruyerino Campegio Lugdun authore, Prima Editio.
Zdtgduni, Apud Sebast. Monoratum. 1560 Cum Privilegio Re-
gio. 8vo, old vellum, the name and date in Uluminated letter-
ing by Mr. Leland on back. Dedication and Index, 11 Leaves
+pp. 1130. On last page, not numbered, after Finis : JAcgduni
suis typis excudebat NICOLAUS EDOARDUS, CAMPANUS
M.D.LX. On inserted leaves, the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph
Pennell. . . . With kind regards of Charles G. Leland, Flor-
ence, Deer. 25th 1901. A Christmas offering."
2) 5
RE CIBARIA
LI BRI XXII
OMNIVM CIBORVM
gcncra,omnium gentium mo-
ribiiSj&vfu probata
comple(5tcntcs,
l9.Sruyerifta Campegio Lugdun authore,
P R-I M A E D 1 T I O.
L VGDVNT,
APVD SEBAST. HONO RATVM,
M. D. L X.
Cum Pciuilcgio Rcgto.
113
CUETIUS, MATTHAEUS.
Matthaei Curtii Papiensis de Prandii Ac Caenae Modo
libellus.
Romae. Apud Pavlum Manutium, Aldi F. Cum privilegio Pii
nil. Pont. Max. 1562. 4to, unbound. Title and Dedication,
1 leaf + blank, 1 leaf + pp. 90.
CEYOLI, MAEIA FRANCISCO.
Juris Evidentiae Demonstratio in Materia Alimentorum,
et Sxmiptuiim Litis.
Floreniiae, 1703. Apud Petrum Matini Archiepisc. Typo-
graph. Superiorum permiss. 4to, old vellum, with title ia old
lettering on back, and on front in illuminated lettering, by-
Mr. Leland. Genealogical table and Synopsis, pp. iv + pp. 72 +
Index, pp. xxiv. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs.
Joseph PenneU. This book, very remotely aUied to the art of
cookery, yet one concerning nourishment, is presented with
the kind regards of Charles Godfrey Leland. Florence, Feb.
14, 1902."
ITALIAI^^
MESSIBUGO, CHRISTOFAEO DI.
Libro N'ovo !N"el Qual s' Insegna A Far D' Ogni sorte di
vivanda secondo la diversita de' tempi, cosi di carne
come di pesce ne'l modo d'ordinar banehetti, apparecchiar
114
tavole fornir palazzi, & ornar camere per ogni gran
Precipe. Opera assai bella, e molto Bisognevole a
maestri di Casa, a Scalchi a Credenzieri, & a Cuochi.
Composta per M. Christofaro di Messibugo & hora di
novo stampata, con la sua Tavola ordinata, ove agevol-
mente si trovar a ogni cosa.
In Venetia Al Segno di San Oirolamo. 1552. 8vo, in vellum,
evidently a page torn from an old illuminated MS. Wood-
cut of kitchen on title page. Dedication and Errori, 2 leaves
+ 115 leaves, the numbers repeated on last three, + Table of
Contents, 6 leaves.
SCAPPI, BAETOLOMEO.
Opera Di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, Cuoco Secreto Di Papa
Pio Quinto, Divisa in Sei Libri. Nel prime si contiene
il ragionamento che fa 1' Autore con Gio. suo disce-
polo. Nel secondo si tratta di diverse vivande di carne,
si di quadrupedi, come di volatili. IS^el terzo si parla
della statura, e stagione de pesci. IS^el quarto si mo-
strano le liste del presentar le vivande in tavola, cosi di
grasso come di magro. Nel quinto si contiene V ordine
di far diverse sorti di paste, & altre lavori. Nel sesto,
& ultimo libro si ragiona de' convalescenti, & molte altre
sorti di vivande per gli infermi. Con il discorso fune-
{jirji,it» con i'lurftriiii'
ffi*fir*Ns..N
% 'I )
'ij Aljl...
7*t.
il'
• - r^-'---^^
5
torchio
u
/^P^
— B-...
^
^f,.T^^^.,^f»m,TM^ >.^^rT^^,TOt i-^Vr ,nET,,v^.nj^ „,^
\,
i',i.roio^i'
*i^^
5 i f;
J. t-
<^
/^ '''^''^'i'j'ii'v,o;'<:SJ» ; njiliill'":' '■'■■■ ""^L'i!!'r:"'3''\P;^^f
fpr^u-ri
H-^
l^
^^T^-,
/.:
J.
C'criz
1?^ 7 A r T(v>mi-*i<«1"<'\'l iv ■^W'^Vt;.[^t'l^]p-p»>ffjSp^(<}[f^-(fffj^f»Wf|^
(w!w»s^'»'«3j*(r^«" -vr^r^l^^^j^'Ay ^ y «L(^^»f^
115
rale che fu f atto nelle essequie di Papa Paulo III. Con
le figure che fanno bisogno iiella cucina, & alii Eeve-
rendissimi nel Conclave. First Edition.
Col privilegio dd Sommo Pontefice Papa Pio V. & dell JMii-
striss. Senato Veneto per atmi X^X. 1570. The name of the
publisher, JVIichiel Tramezino, appears in Concession on first
and second leaf. 4to, in old vellum, with old lettering on back.
Concession and Dedications, 4 leaves + engraved portrait of
Scappi + 372 leaves. Then follow 4 leaves of explanation of
the engravings, and 27 engravings on copper of the kitchen
and kitchen utensUs. This copy has on inside of cover the
book plate of " WiUiam Horatio Crawford, Lakelands, Cork."
SCAPPI, BAETOLOMEO.
Opera Di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, Cuoco Secreto Di
Papa Pio Quinto, etc.
Jn Venetia, 1598. Appresso Alessandro Vecchi. 4to, in modern
calf. Frontispiece, unsigned engraving on copper, portrait of
Scappi. Concession and Dedication, 2 leaves + 4 woodcuts
of kitchen and kitchen utensDs + 311 leaves. This copy has,
written on fly-leaf : " George Augustus Sala, Brighton, 1880.
Note the curious engravings of culinary utensils. I cannot
find any directly poisonous recipes among the formulas of the
' Cuoco Secreto.' Possibly they never passed out of the MS.
form." Sala's autograph and "46 Mecklenburgh Square, W.
C.,May 1st, 1884," on title page.
116
KOMOLI, DOMENICO.
La Singolare Dottrina di M. Domenico Eomoli sopra-
nominato Panunto, Dell' ufficio dello Scalco, dei condi-
menti di tutte le vivande, le stagioni che ei convengono
a tutti gli animali, vecelli, & pesci, Banchetti di ogni
tempo, & mangiare da apparecchiarsi di di, in di, per
tutto 1' anno a Preneipi. Con la dichiaratione della
qualita delle carni di tutti gli animali, & pesci, & di
tutte le vivande circa la sanita. Nel fine vm breve trat-
tato del reggimento della sanita. Opera sonrmamente
utile a tutti.
Col Privilegio del Sonimo Pontefice, & delV lUustr. Senato
Veneto per anni XX. 1560. 8 vo, in old vellum. Title, Dedi-
cation, Table of Contents, etc., 16 leaves + 376 leaves.
DURANTE, CASTOR.
H Tesoro della Sanita, Di Castor Durante da Gualdo,
Medico, & Cittadino Romano. Nel quale s' insegna il
modo di conservar la Sanita, & prolungar la vita, et si
tratta Della Natura De' Cibi, & de' Rimedij de' nocu-
menti lore. Con la Tavola Delle Cose Notabili.
In Venetia, 1586, Appresso Andrea Muschio. 8vo, old vel-
lum. Title, sub-title. Dedication, etc., Table of Contents, 8
leaves + pp. 328. On inserted leaf, inscription: "To Mrs. J.
117
PennelL 11 Tesoro della Sanita. Venice, A. D. 1586. This
rare work is, notwithstanding its title, simply a Cook-Book,
treatiag of the different kinds of food and their preparations.
It is curious as containing poems on every subject of which it
treats. Charles G. Leland."
DURANTE, CASTOR.
II Tesoro della Sanita Di Castor Durante da Gualdo, etc.
In Venetia, Appresso JJucio Spineda. 1605. 8vo, in old
vellum. Title, sub-title. Dedication, Table of Contents, etc.,
8 leaves + PP- 324. On inserted leaf, inscription: " II Tesoro
Sanita. To Mrs. Joseph Pennell, with kind regards of Chas.
G. Leland, etc., etc."
CERVIO, VEN^CEN^ZO.
H Trinciante Di M. Yincenzo Cervio, Ampliato et A
Perfettione ridotto dal Cavalier Reale Fusoritto da
Narni, Gia Trinciante dell' Illustrissimo & Reveren-
dissimo Signor Cardinal Parnese, & al presente dell'
Illustriss. Signor Cardinal Mont'alto. Con diverse
aggiunte f atte dal Cavalier Reale, & dall' istesso in questa
ultima Impressione, aggiuntovi nel fine un breve Dialogo
detto il Mastro di Casa, per governo d' una Casa di
qual si voglia Principe con li Offitialinecessarij, utile &
giovevole a ogni Cortigiano.
118
Con Privilegio del Sommo Pontefice, e lAcenza c?e' Superiori Ad
Istanza di Giidio Burchioni. In Roma. Nella Stampa del
Gabbia. 1593. 4to, in old vellum. My copy incomplete to
page 14. In aU, pp. 162. At the end, Begistro. -\- A B C D
E F G H I K L. Tutti sono quaderni, eccetto che & duerno,
& Iterno, & K duerno. In Roma. Nella Stampa del Gahhia.
1593. On inserted leaf, inscription : " Presented to Mrs.
Joseph PeimeU, With kindest regards of Charles G. Leland.
Florence May 26th 1898."
MAGRI, DOMENICO.
Yirtu Del Kafe Bevanda Introdotta ISTuovamente Nell'
Italia. Con alcune osseryationi per conservar la sanita
nella vecchiaia. All' Eminentissimo Signer Cardinal
Brancacci. Seconda Impressione Con aggiunta del
medesimo Autore.
In Roma Per Michde Hercole. Con licenza cfe' Superiori. A ^ese
di Giovanni Casone, aW Insegna di S. Paolo. 1671. 4to, un-
bound. Pp. 16. The name of the author appears only on page 9.
DB LA VARENNE, FRAKgOIS PIEREE.
B Cuoco Francese Ove e Insegnata La maniera di
condire ogni sorte di Yivande, E di fare ogni sorte di
Pasticeierie, e di Confetti, Conforme le quattro Stagion
deir Anno. Per il Signer De La Varenne Cuoco Mag-
119
giore Del Sig. Marches. D'Uxelles, Trasportato Nuova-
mente dal Francese all' Italiana favella.
In Yenetia. Per Lorenzo Baseggio. Con Lice. dS 8up. 1703.
12ino, in vellum. Title and Table of Contents, 12 leaves +
pp. 420. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. J. Pen-
nell, With kindest regards of Charles G. Leland. Florence.
March 28th 1897. Entirely bound by the donor ! A curious
and very rare work from old sources. It contains valuable
recipes in sweets, e.g. how to candy violets and other flowers."
On second inserted leaf : " Fon tiro kamlo Kako, se akovo
delaben C. G. L."
LEONARDI, FRAJ^CESCO.
H Pasticciere AH' Uso Moderno, E Sul Gusto Del Pre-
sente Secolo Dato in Luce Da Francesco Leonardi, Gia'
Cuoco di Sua Maesta' Caterina 11. Imperatrice di tutte
le Russie.
In Firenze. Presso Giuseppe Lmhi in Faccia cd Fisco. Con
Approvazione, 1797. 12mo, in parchment by Mr. Leland.
Pp. 272. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " Mrs. J. Pennell,
with kindest regards of Charles G. Leland, etc."
LEOITARDI, FRANCESCO.
Apicio Moderno Di Francesco Leonardi. Edizione Se-
conda, Reyista, Corretta, ed Accresciuta Dall' Autore.
120
In Roma. Nella Stamperia del Giunchi, presso Carlo Mbrdae-
chini. Con Approvazione. 1807. 6 vols. 8vo, in parchment
by Mr. Leland. In Vol. I : Title page, Preface, etc., pp. LVIII.
+ pp. 296. On inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph
PenneU, With kindest regards of Charles G. Leland, as a
seasonable Christmas offering. Florence Dec. 25, 1897."
LEONAEDI, FKANCESCO.
Gianina ossia La Cuciniera Delle Alpi, Di Francesco
Leonardi.
Roma. Con lAcenza <?e' Superiori. Date blotted out in my
copy. 3 vols. 8vo, in parchment, with illuminated lettering
on back, by Mr. Leland. In Vol. I : pp. 319. On inserted leaf,
the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph PenneU with kind regards of
Charles Godfrey Leland. Florence, Feb. 13. 1899, etc."
FEENCH
DE LA YARENNE, FEANgOIS PIERRE.
Le Cuisinier Francois. Enseignant la Maniere de bien
apprester et assaisonner toutes sortes de Viandes grasses
& maigres, Legumes, Patisseries, & autres mets qui se
servent tant sur les Tables des Grands que des par-
ticuliers. Avec Une instruction pour faire des Con-
fitures : Bt des Tables necessaires. Par le Sieur De La
L E
CUISINTER
FRANCOIS.
ENSEIGNANT LA MA-
niere de bien appreftcr & aflfaifon-
nertoUtesfortesdeViandes gra(Tcs& mai-
grcs. Legumes, PatifTeries , 8c autres tnets
qui feferventtant furlesTablesdcsGrands
que des parti culiers.
Avec
Vne inflructm pour faire des Conptaret:
Etdtt Tablesriectjfairts.
ParleSieur
DE LA VARENNE
Efcuyer, &c.
DtrnienEdition augmentie O'corrigit-
^ LA H AT Ei
Chez Adkian Vlacq.*
M. DC.LVI.
121
Yarenne, Eecuyer, &c. Derniere Edition augmentee &
corrigee.
A la Sdye, Chez Adrian Vlacg, 1656. 12mo, old calf. Title,
Dedication, Tables, 5 leaves + pp. 426 + Table Generale, 14
leaves. Bound up in same volume 78 leaves of blank paper.
DE LA YARENNE, FRANgOIS PIERRE.
Le Yray Cuisinier Francois. Enseignant La Maniere
de bien apprester et aesaisonner toutes sortes de Yiandes,
grasses et maigres, Legumes et Patisseries en perfec-
tion, etc., Augmentee d'un nouveau Confiturier, qui
apprend a bien faire toutes sortes de Confitures, tant
seches que liquides, de Compostes, de Fruits, de Dra-
gees, Breuvages delicieux, & autres delicatesses de
bouche. Le Maistre d'Hostel Et le Grand Ecuyer-
Tranchant, Ensemble d'une Table Alphabetique des
Matieres qui sont traitees dans tout le Livi'e. Par le
Sieur De La Yarenne, Ecuyer de Cuisine de Monsieur
le Marquis d'Uxelles. Nouvelle Edition.
A Amsterdam, Chez Pierre Mortier, Libraire sur le Yygendam,
d la viUe de Paris. No date, but attributed to from 1690 to
1715 by Vicaire. 12mo, old vellum. Frontispiece, engraving
on copper of a kitchen. Title, Preface, and Tables, 11 leaves
+ pp. 380 + Table Alphabetique, 2 leaves. 18 illustrations.
122
DE BLEGNY.
Le Bon Usage Du The du Caffe et Du Chocolat Pom-
la Preservation & pour la guerison des Maladies. Par
Mr. De Blegny, Conseiller, Medecin Artiste ordinaire
du Eoy & de Monsieur, & prepose par ordre de sa Ma-
jeste, a la Eecherche & Verification des nouvelles decou-
vertes de Medecine.
A Paris, Chez Estienne Michalkt, rue S. Jacques, ci V Image 8.
Paul. Avec Approbation et privilege du Roy. 1687. 12mo,
old calf. Frontispiece, engraving on copper. Title, Dedica-
tion, etc., 11 leaves + pp. 358 + Table des Chapitres, 2 leaves.
12 engravings by Hainzebnan.
LEMERY, LOUIS.
Traite des Aliments, ou I'on trouve Par Ordre et Se-
parement La difference & le choix qu'on doit f aire de
chacun d'eux en particulier; les bons & les mauvais
eff ets qu'ils peuvent produire ; les principes en quoy ils
abondent; le temps, I'age & le temperament ou ils con-
vicanent. Avec des Eemarques a la suite de chaque
Chapitre, ou I'on explique leur nature & leurs usages,
suivant les principes Chymiques, &Mechanique8. Par M.
Louis Lemery, Docteur Eegent en la Faculte de Mede-
l£^MM-Mj4s^LAiL2ld_-^
^.i-V a pre-pa,* cr If > /n
J
123
cine de Paris, de 1' Academic Eoyale des Sciences. First
Edition.
A Paris, Ckez J. JB. Cusson et P. Witte, rue S. Jacques, au
Norm de Jesus & au Bon Pasteur, vis d vis la rue du Pldtre.
Avec Approbations <& Privilege du Roy. 1702. Small 8vo,
old calf. Titles, Dedication, Preface, etc., 28 leaves + pp. 541
+ Extrait du Registre, etc., 1 leaf.
MASSIALOT.
Le Nouveau Ciiisinier Royal et Bourgeois; Qui Ap-
prend a Ordonner Toute sorte de Rep as en gras & en
maigre, & la meilleure maniere des Ragouts les plus
delicats & les plus a la mode, & toutes sortes de Patis-
series: avec des nouveaux desseins de Tables. Ou-
vrage tres-utile dans les Families, aux Maitres d'Hotels
& Officiers de Cuisine.
A Paris. Chez Claude Prudhomme, au Palais, au sixieme
Pilier de la Grand'' SaUe, vis-d-vis VEcalier de la Cour des Aides,
d la Bonne-Foy couronnee. Avec Privilege du Roy. 1714. 2
vols. (Vol. II of my copy missing). Small 8 vo, old calf. Title,
Preface, etc., 4 leaves + pp. 491 + Table des Mets, 11 leaves.
11 Plates.
DESTRUCTION, NOUYELLE.
lEouvelle Instruction Pour les Confitures, Les Liqueurs,
124
et les Fruits : Ou I'on apprend a confire toute sorte de
Fruits, tant sees que liquides, & divers Ouyrages de
Sucre qui sont du fait des Officiers & Confiseurs; avee
la maniere de bien ordonner un Fruit. Suite du Nou-
veau Cuisinier Koyal et Bourgeois, egalement utile aux
Maitres-d'Hotels, & dans les Families, pour S9avoir ce
qu'on sert de plus a la mode dans les Repas. Nouvelle
Edition, revue, corrigee & beaucoup augmentee. Avee
de nouveaux Desseins de Table.
A Paris, Chez Claude Prudhomme, au Palais, au sixieme Pilier
de la Chand^ Salle, vis-d-vis VEscalier de la Cour des Aides, d, la
Bonne- Foy couronnee. Avee Privilege du Soy. 1716. Small
8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, and Table, 6 leaves + PP- 464 +
Table des Matieres, Approbation, etc., 13 leaves. 3 plates.
LIGEE, LOUIS (Attributed to).
Le Menage des Champs et de la Yille; ou nouveau
Cuisinier Fran9ois, Accommode au gout du Tems. Con-
tenant tout ce qu'un parf ait Chef de Cuisine doit s§avoir
pour servir toutes sortes de tables, depuis celles des plus
grands Seigneurs jusqu'a celles des bons BoiU"geois, avee
une instruction pour faire toutes sortes de Patisseries,
confitures seches & liquides, & toutes les differentes
125
liqueurs qiu sont aujourd'hui en usage. IS'ouvelle
Edition.
A Paris, Chez Christ. David, Lihraire-Imprimeur, rue 8. Jacq.
prh la Fontaine S. Severin, au JVbm de Jesus. Avec Privilege
du Roi. 1739. 8vo, half calf. Title, Preface, Table, etc., 6
leaves + pp. 473 + Table des Matieres, 4 leaves. On inside
of cover, book plate of " Walter Charles James."
DICTIONAIEE DES ALIMENS.
Dictionaire des Alimens, Yins et Liqueurs, Leur Qual-
ites, Leurs Effets, relativement aux differens ages, &
aux differens temperamens; Avec La Maniere de les
Appreter, Ancienne et Moderne, Suivant la methode des
plus habiles Chef s-d' Office & Chefs de Cuisine, de la
Cour, & de la Yille. Ouvrage tres-utile dans toutes
les families. Par M. C. D. Chef de Cuisine de M. le
Prince de * * *
A Pari^. Chez CHssey, rue de la Yieille £ouclerie. Bordelet,
rue Saint Jacques. Avec Approbation dt Privilege du Poi. On
page xxviii, De Vlmprimerie de GHssey. 1750. 3 vols. 12nio,
old calf. In Vol. I, Titles, Preface, etc., pp. xxviii + pp. 538
+ Approbation, etc., 1 leaf. On inserted leaf, the inscription :
"To Mrs. J. Pennell this book is presented with the kindest
regards of her uncle : Charles G. Leland. Florence, Sept. 27,
1901."
126
ECOLE DE SALERNE, L'.
L'Art de Conserver Sa Saute, Compose par L'Ecole
de Salerne. Traduction nouvelle en Vers Frangois, Par
Mr.B. L. M.
A Paris, Par la Compagnie des lAbraires. 1753. 8vo, in
boards. Pp. 104 + Table, 2 leaves. My copy bound up with
" La Cochlioperie," 1808.
MARIN.
Les Dons de Comus, ou L'Art de la Cuisine, Reduit en
Pratique, ISTouvelle Edition, Revue, corrigee & aug-
mentee par I'Auteur.
A Paris, Chez Pissot, Libraire, Quai de Conti, ct la Croix d' Or,
d, la descente du Pont Neuf, au coin de la Rue de Nevers. Avec
Approbation et Privilege du Boi. 1758. 3 vols. 12mo, old
calf. Frontispiece engraving on copper by Le Bas. In Vol.
I : Avis and Preface, pp. xlviii + pp. 490.
CHAMBRAY, G. DE.
L Art de Cultiver les Pommiers, les Poiriers, et de Faire
des Cidres Selon I'usage de la Normandie. Par M. le
Marquis de Chambray.
A Paris, Chez Oaneau, rue Saint- Severin, prh VEglise, avx
armes de Dombes & d Saint-Louis. Avec Permission. 1765.
L* A R T
DE CONSERVER
SA SANTE,
CO M P O S t ? A K
L'feCOLE DE SALERNE.
Tnidudbioo nouvelle
EN VERS FRANCOIS,
Par Mr. B. L. M.
K PARIS.
Par la Compagnie des Libraires.
M. OCC. LIIL
127
Small 8vo, old calf. Title and Preface, 2 leaves + pp. 66 +
Approbation, 1 leaf. Bound up with my copy, "M6moire sur
les Pommes de Terre, par M. Mustel," Rouen, de V Imprimerie
de la Veuve Besongne, 1767; "Lettre. . . . Au sujet de la
Culture des Pommes de Terre," Rouen, Chez Et. Vine. Machuel,
1770; "Traite sur L'Acacia," Bordeaux, Chez les Frlres La-
hottiere, 1762 ; and "L'Art de Cultiver les Peupliers d'ltalie,"
Paris, Chez la Veuve d'lToury, 1762.
CUISINIEEE BOUEGEOISE, LA.
La Ciusiniere Bourgeoise, Suivie de L'Office. A
I'usage de tous ceux qui se melent de depensee de
Maisons. Contenant la maniere de dissequer, connoitre
& servir toutes sortes de Viandes, !Nouvelle Edition.
Augmentee de plusieurs ragouts des plus nouveaux, &
de differentes Eecettes pour lee Liqueurs.
A Paris, Chez P. ChiiUaume Cavdier, lAhraire, Rue S. Jacques,
auLysd'Or. 1777. 8vo, old calf. Title and Preface, 2 leaves
+ pp. 418.
CUISINLEEE BOUEGEOISE, LA.
La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, Suivie de I'Office, a L'Usage
de Tous Ceux Qui Se Melent de Depenses de Maisons.
Contenant la maniere de connoitre, dissequer & servir
toutes sortes de viandes; des avis interessans sur leur
128
bonte & sur le choix qu'on en doit faire. La fagon de
faire des Menus pour les quatre Saisons, & des Eagouts
des plus nouveaux; une explication de termes propres
&, a I'usage de la Cuisine & de 1' Office; & une Liste
alphabetique des ustensiles qui y sont necessaires. ISow-
velle Edition, augmentee de plusieurs apprets qui sont
marques par une Etoile.
A £ruxeUes, Chez Franfois Foppens, Imprimeur lAbraire.
1779. 2 vols. 8vo, paper covers. In Vol. I : Avertissement,
Explication, etc. Pp. xxiv + pp. 320.
CUISmiEEE BOURGEOISE, LA.
La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, [etc. Title the same as in
1777 edition.]
A Paris, Chez les lAbraires Associes. 1786. 8vo, old calf.
Title and Preface, 3 leaves + pp. 372.
CUISIKIERE BOURGEOISE, LA.
La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, [etc. Title same as in 1777
edition.]
A Paris, Chez Andre, Imprimeur-Libraire, rue de la Harpe,
No. 477. An VI de la Republique. 8vo, paper boards, with
title on back in illuminated lettering by Mr. Leland. Pp. 408.
On leaf inserted, the inscription: " To Mrs. Joseph Pennell,
L A
CUISINIERE
BOURGEOISEy
S U I V 1 E
DE L- OFFICE
A I'ufage de tons ceux qiri fe melent de
depenfes de Mailbns.
Conunant la maniere de diffequer , eonnottre
& fervirtoutix fortes deViandes ,
NOUVELLE EDITION.
Augmentee de plufieurs ragoilts des plus nou.
veaux , & de differentes Recettes pour lea
Liqueurs.
A PARIS,
Ch« p. GuiLLAUME Caveljer , Libraifc >
Rue S. Jacques, au Lys d'Or.
M. DCC. L XXVII.
129
with love of Uncle Charles G. Leland; Florence, April 24,
1902. A good clean copy of the Standard French Cook-book
— the Preface is extremely clever."
CUISDrtEEE BOURGBOISB, LA.
La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise [etc. — same title as 1777
edition, to] Derniere Edition, Augmentee de plusieurs
ragouts des plus nouveaux, et de differentes recettes
pour les liqueurs, avec une explication par ordre alpha-
betique, des termes en usage pour la Cuisine et I'Office.
A Lyon, Chez Amabk Leroy, Imprimeur-Libraire. 1802. 8vo,
in paper boards. Title and Preface, pp. vi + pp. 384. On
inserted leaf, the inscription : " To Mrs. Joseph Pennell, with
kind regards of Charles G. Leland, Florence, May 28, 1897."
La Science du Maitre D'Hotel, Confiseur, a L'Usage
des Officiers, Avec des Observations Sur la connois-
sance & les proprietes des Fruits. Enrichie de Des-
eeins en Decorations & Parterres pour les Desserts.
Suite du Maitre d'Hotel Cuisinier. Nouvelle Edition,
revne et corrigee.
A Pans. Par la Compagnie des lAhraires assodes. Avec
Approbation et Privilege du Moi. At the end, De V Imprimerie
130
de Valleyre jeune. 1788. 8vo, in old calf. Title and Preface,
pp. X + Premier Plan, etc., 1 leaf + pp. 525 + Tables, 13
leaves. 5 plates.
MENON.
La Science du Maitre-D'Hotel Cuisinier, Avec Des
Observations sur la Connoissance & les proprietes des
Alimens. JS^ouvelle Edition, revue et corrigee.
A Paris, Chez Les Libraires Associes. Avec Approbation et
Privilege du Roi. 1789. 8vo, in old calf. Title and Disser-
tation Preliminaire, pp. xxiv + pp. 554.
LE COINTE, JOUEDAN.
La Cuisine de Sante, Ou Moyens f aciles & economiques
de preparer toutes nos Productions Alimentaires de la
maniere la plus delicate & la plus salutaire, d'apres les
nouvelles decouvertes de la Cuisine Fran^oise & Ita-
lienne. Par M. Jourdain le Cointe, Docteur en Mede-
cine; revu par un Practicien de Montpellier. Ouvrage
destine a I'instruction des Gens de I'Art, a 1' amuse-
ment des Amateurs & particulierement a la conservation
de la Sante.
A Paris, Chez Briand, Lihraire, Hotel de ViJUers, 'rue Pavee
Saint-Andre-des-Arts. 1789. 3 vols. 8vo, half calf. In Vol.
I : pp. 465. 1 plate.
131
SEYIS^IEEE, GEIMOD DE LA.
ilmanach des Gourmands, ou Calendrier Nutritif Ser-
rant de Guide dans les Moyens de Faire Excellente
3here; Suivi de I'ltineraire d'un Gourmand dans divers
[uartiers de Paris, et de quelques Yarietes morales,
lutritives, Anecdotes gourmandes, etc. Par un Yieux
^ateur. Seconde Edition revue et corrigee.
A Paris. Chez Maradan, rue JPavee- Saint- Andre-des- Arts.
iVb. 16. ^w XZ — 1803. 8 Vols. — from 1803 to 1812; in 1809,
no number was published. 8vo, paper covers. In Vol. I:
Title, Avis, etc., pp. viii + pp. 247. On inserted leaf, the
inscription in verse : —
Autolyc Soul I above brunette or blondness,
Fondest of food, and fittest food for fondness,
Who dost with thy divinely greedy art
Win that within that 's underneath the heart,
Accept — it leaves thee still my liver's creditor —
This grace of greed from thy eupeptic Editor.
H. C.
liEY^IEEE, GEIMOD DE LA.
Manuel des Amphitryons; contenant un Traite de la
)issection des viandes a table, la ^Nomenclature des
ilenus les plus nouveaux pour chaque saison, et des
Clemens de Politesse gourmande. Ouvrage indispen-
able a tous ceux qui sont jaloux de faire bonne chere.
182
et de la f aire f aire aux autres ; Orne d'un grand nombre
de Planches gravees en taille-douce. Par I'Auteur de
I'Almanach des Gourmands.
A Paris, Chez Capelle et Henand, lAbraires- Commissionnaires,
rue J. J. Bousseau. 1808. 8to, old calf. Frontispiece, etch-
iag. Pp. 384. 16 etched plates. Inside the cover, the book
plate of " Albert F. Sieveking."
ENGLISH
MAEKHAM, GEEYASE.
The English Housewife. Containing The inward and
outward Yertues which ought to be in a compleate Wo-
man. As her sMll in Physicke, Surgery, Cookery, Ex-
traction of Oyles, Banqueting stuffe, Ordering of great
Feasts, Preserving of all sorts of "Wines, Conceited
Secrets, Distillations, Perfumes, ordering of Wooll,
Hempe, Flax, making Cloth, and Dying, the knowledge
of Dayries, office of Malting, of Gates, their excellent
uses in a Family, of Brewmg, Baking, and all other
things belonging to an Houshold. A Worke generally
approved, and now the fourth time much augmented,
purged and made most profitable and necessary for all
men, and the generall good of this Kingdome. By G. M.
THE E NG LlSH
H O V S E-^W 1 F E.
CONTAINING
The inward and outward Vermes which
ought to be in a complcatc Woman.
qJs hsrskiUin^hyfici^e, Surgery, QooJ^ry*
Extradion of Oy Ics, Banqueting ftuffc^ Ordering of
great Feafts^Prefcruing of all forts of Wines ,Concci-
tedSecrets,Difiill/imas:^Perf(imtSfirderwgofW0o9y
Hempe, Flax, making Cloth, and Dying, the know-
ledge ofDayries, office of Malting, ofOates,
iheir^xcelknt vfes in a Family,of Brew-
ing, faking, and all other things
belonging to an Houftiold.
A Worke generally approued , and nov^ the fourth time mudh
augmented, purged and made mofl profitable and
neceHTary for all men , and the generallgood
ofthi&Kingdome.
By G, M.
LON DON,
Printed by NichoUs okes for John Hartsoh, andarcfe
be fold at his fhop at-the fignc of the golden
Vnicorac ia Pater, noftcr-row i^ji.
183
London, Printed by Nicholas Okes for John Harison, and
are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the golden Uhicome
in Pater-noster-row. 1631. 4to, half calf. Title, Dedication,
Table, 5 leaves + pp. 252.
DELIGHTES FOE LADIES.
Delightes for Ladies, to Adorne their Persons, Tables,
Closets and Distillatories : With Beauties, Banquets,
Perfumes and Waters, Read, practise, and censure.
Ziondon, Printed byH.Yl and are to bee sold by James Poler.
1632. 12ino, old vellum. 96 leaves. Each page with a deco-
rative border cut on wood. Title page of my copy much de-
faced. Bound in same volume,
CLOSET FOR LADIES, A.
A Closet for Ladies and Gentlew^omen. Or, the Art of
preserving. Conserving, and Candying. With the man-
ner how to make divers kindes of Sirups, and all Mnde
of banqueting stuffes. Also divers soveraigne Medi-
cines and Salves for Sundry Diseases.
Londcm, Printed by John Maviland. 1632. 96 leaves. The
pages also with decorative border.
MUFFETT, THOMAS.
Healths Improvement: or. Rules Comprizing and Dis-
134
covering the Nature, Method, and Manner of Preparing
all sorts of Food Used in this ISTation. Written by that
ever Famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: Cor-
rected and Enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in
Physick, and Fellow of the CoUedg of Physitians in
London.
London, Printed by Tho : JVewcomb for Samuel Thomson, at
the sign of the White Horse in Pauls Churchyard. 1655. 4to,
modern calf. Title, Epistle, Table, pp. 8 + pp. 296.
MOFFET, THOMAS.
Health's Improvement. . . . To which is now prefix' d,
A short Yiew of the Author's Life and Writings by
Mr Oldys, and An Introduction by R. James, M, D.
London ; PritUedfor T. Osborne in Grray''s-Inn,Vl4:Q. 8vo, old
calf. Title, Epistle to the Reader, etc., pp. xxxii + pp. 398.
COMPLEAT COOK, THE.
The Compleat Cook. Expertly prescribing the most
ready wayes, Whether, Italian, Spanish, or French.
For dressing of Flesh, and Fish, Ordering of Sauces,
or making of Pastry.
London : Printed for JVath. Brook at the Angel in Com^hill,
1655. 12mo, old calf. Pp. 123 + Table, 3 leaves.
133
CLOSET, THE QUEEN'S.
The Queens Closet Opened. Incomparable Secrets in
Physick, Chirurgery, Preserving, Candying, and Cook-
ery; As they were presented to the Queen By the most
Experienced Persons of our times, many whereof were
honoured with her own practice, when she pleased to
descend to these more private Recreations. Never
before published. Transcribed from the true Copies of
her Majesties own Receipt-Books, by W. M. one of her
late servants.
Printed for Nathaniel Brook, at the Angel in OomhiU, 1655.
12mo, half calf. Title and Dedication, 6 leaves + pp. 192.
Bound up with it,
DELIGHT, A QUEEN'S.
A Queen's Dehght, or The Art of Preserving, Con-
serving, and Candying; as also A right knowledge of
making Perfvmies, and Distilling the most Excellent
Waters. Never before published.
Printed for Nathaniel Brook, at the Angel in Comhill. 1655.
Continues pagination of Queen's Closet to 296. Table for
both books, and Publisher's Advertisement, 12 leaves.
136
DELIGHT, A QUEEN'S.
[The same, in separate volmne. Later edition.]
London, Printed for Obadiah JBlagrave at the Sign of the black
Bear in St. Pauls Churchyard. 1683. 12mo, modern calf.
Pp. 106 + Table, 2 leaves.
CLOSET, THE QUEEN'S.
The Queen's Closet Opened. . . . Corrected and Re-
viewed with many New and large Additions : together
with three exact Tables.
London. Printed by J. W. for Nath. Brooke, at the Angel in
Gresham^ College, near the Exchange in Bishops- Gate- Street.
1668. 12mo, old calf. Frontispiece, engraving on copper,
portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria. Portrait, title. To the
Reader, etc., 6 leaves + pp. 191.
RUTHVEN, PATRICK, LORD.
The Ladies Cabinet Enlarged and Opened: Containing
Many Rare Secrets and Rich Ornaments, of several
kindes, and different uses. Comprized Under three gen-
eral Heads. Viz. of, 1. Preserving, Conserving, Candy-
ing, etc. 2. Physick and Chirurgery. 3. Cookery and
Housewifery. Whereunto is added, Sundry Experi-
ments and choice Extractions of Waters, Oyles, etc.
pifJ' 1"^ 'Aflt'lji-oah'C
. 'I
137
Collected and practised; By the late Eight Honorable
and Learned Chymist, the Lord Ruthven. The second
Edit, with Additions and A particular Table to each
Part.
London, Printed by T. M. for G. Bedell and T. CoUins at the
middle- Temple Gate, Fleet-street. 1655. 12nio, old calf. Title,
Dedication, etc., 4 leaves + pp. 252 + Table and Publisher's
Advertisement, 8 leaves.
MAT, ROBERT.
The Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of
Cookery. Wherein the whole Art is revealed in a more
easie and perfect Method, than hath been publisht in
any Language. Expert and ready wayes for the Dress-
ing of all sorts of Flesh, Fowl, and Fish; the Raising
of Pastes; the best Directions for all manner of Kick-
shaws, and the most Poinant Sauces ; with the Tearms
of Carving and Sewing. An exact Account of all
Dishes for the Season; with other A la mode Curiosities.
Together with the lively Illustrations of such necessary
Figures as are referred to Practice. Approved by the
Fifty Years Experience and Industry of Robert May, in
his Attendance on several Persons of Honour.
1S8
London. Printed by B. W. for Nath. Brooke, at the Sign of
the Angel in CornhiU. 1660. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, por-
trait of Robert May. Frontispiece, Title, Dedication, etc., 16
leaves + pp. 447 + Table and Publisher's Advertisement, 7
leaves. Numerous illustrations, woodcuts, printed with the
text. (In my copy, pp. 291-292 missing.)
MAY, EOBBET.
The Accomplisht Cook etc. — The Fourth Edition.
London, Printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear in St Pauls
Church-Yard, near the Little North-Door. 1678. 8vo, old calf.
Frontispiece, same portrait. Frontispiece, Title, etc., 16 leaves
+ pp. 461 + Table and Publisher's Advertisement, 5 leaves.
Illustrations in text and four folded plates.
DIGBY, SIR KENELM.
The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme
Digby Kt. Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several
ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry- Wine,
etc. Together with Excellent Directions for Cookery:
as also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, etc.
Published by his Son's Consent.
London, Printed by E. G. & A. C. far H. Brome, of the West-
End of St. PauVs. 1671. 8vo, in old calf . Title and Preface,
2 leaves + pp. 251 + Table, 4 leaves. My copy foUows, in
ililil
ecu' i6>^
C'/LciccL 6'z .
139
the same volume. Sir Kenelm Digby's " Receipts in Physick
and Chirurgery," which has as frontispiece a portrait of the
author, engraved by Gross.
EABISHA, WILL.
The whole Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and
fully manifested. Methodically, Artificially, and accord-
ing to the best Tradition of the English, French, Italian,
Dutch, etc. Or, A Sympathy of all varieties in JSTatu-
ral Compounds in that Mysterie. Wherein is contained
certain Bills of Fare for the Seasons of the year, for
Feasts and Common Diets. Wherunto is annexed a
Second Part of Eare Receipts of Cookery: with cer-
tain useful Traditions. With a book of Preserving,
Conserving and Candying, after the most Exquisite
and Xewest manner : Delectable for Ladies and Gentle-
women.
London. Printed for E. Calvert^ at the sign of the black Spread
Eagle, at the West end of St. Pauls. 1673. 8vo, old calf.
Title, Dedication, etc., 10 leaves + the Table, pp. 19, the first
12 not numbered, + pp. 289,+ Note to the Reader, etc., 3 leaves.
WOOLLEY, HAira^AH.
The Queen-Like Closet or Rich Cabinet.
140
Title-page and part of Dedication of my copy missing. 8vo,
old calf. Pp. 344 + Table, Postscript, etc., 15 leaves. Fol-
lowed by Supplement, or A Little of Every Thing Presented
To all Ingenious Ladies and Gentlewomen, with separate
title-page. London, Printed by T. It. for Richard Xiownds,
and are to be Sold at the Sign of the White Lion in Duck-Lane.
1674. Title, Dedication, etc., 6 leaves -|- pp. 194, but pages are
missing at the end. This is one of the rarest of the Seven-
teenth Century books.
HAKTMAN, GEOEGE.
Hartman's Curiosities of Art and IsTature : or The True
Preserver and Restorer of Health . . . the Second Edi-
tion, With a second part, entitled, Excellent Directions
for Cookery; Together with the Description of an Use-
ful Engin serving for the same ; and hkevpise for Dis-
tiUing the Choicest and Best Cordial Waters. As also
Select Receipts for Preserving, Conserving, and Candy-
ing, etc. With a Collection of the Choicest Receipts
for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry- Wine, etc.
First part: Printed for A. G. at the Ring in Little Britain,
Where is sold A thousand Notable Things to prevent the Plague,
and all Distempers ; the Way to get Wealth, and the Way to save
Wealth. Second part : London, Printed by T. B. for O. Hart-
man Chymist. 1682. 8vo, old calf. Title, Dedication, etc., 8
leaves + PP. 352 + Second Part, pp. 32.
Ul
ROSE, GILES.
A perfect School of Instructions for the Officers of the
Mouth: Shewing the Whole Art of A Master of the
Household, A Master Carver, A Master Butler, A Mas-
ter Confectioner, A Master Cook, A Master Pastryman.
Being a Work of singular Use for Ladies and Gentle-
women, and all Persons whatsoever that are desirous to
be acquainted with the most excellent Arts of Carving,
Cookery, Pastry, Preserving, and Laying a Cloth for
Grand Entertainments. The like never before extant
in any Language. Adorned with Pictures curiously
Ingraven, displaying the whole Arts. By Giles Rose
one of the Master Cooks in His Majesties Eatchen.
Xiondon, Printed for H. Sentley and M. Magnes, III Russd-
street in Covent- Garden. 1682. 8vo, old calf. Title, Dedication,
etc., 12 leaves + pp. 563. Numerous Dlustrations, woodcuts,
printed with the text. The book, " The like never before
extant in any Language," is a translation of " L'Ecole Par-
faite des OfBciers de Bouche," from which most of the illus-
trations are taken.
WHOLE DUTY OF A WOMAN, THE.
The Whole Duty of a Woman: Or a Guide to the Fe-
male Sex from the Age of Sixteen to Sixty, etc. . . .
U2
Also Choice Keceipts in Physick, and Chirurgery.
"With the Whole Art of Cookery, Preserving, Candy-
ing, Beautifying, etc. Written by a Lady. The Third
Edition.
London. Printed for J. GuiUim, against the Great James Tavern
in Bishopsgate-street. 1701. 12nio, old calf. Title and Pre-
face, 3 leaves + pp. 184
WHOLE DUTY OF A WOMAN, THE.
The Whole Duty of a Woman. . . . [Same as above.]
The Eighth Edition.
IjOiidon: Printed far A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch., at the Red
Lyon in Pater-Noster Bow ; B. Ware., at the Sun and Bible, in
Amen Corner ; and James Hodges, at the Looking- Glass on
London Bridge. 1735. 12ino, modern calf. Frontispiece,
woodcut of woman at prayers and in kitchen. Title and Pre-
face, 3 leaves + pp. 167.
KING, WILLIAM.
The Art of Cookery, In Imitation of Horace's Art of
Poetry. With some Letters to Dr. Lister, and others:
Occasion'd principally by the Title of a Book publish'd
by the Doctor, being the Works of Apicius Coelius,
Concerning the Soups and Sauces of the Antients.
143
With an Extract of the greatest Curiosities contain'd in
that Book. To which is added, Horace's Art of Poetry,
in Latin. By the Author of the Journey to London.
Humbly inscrib'd to the Honourable Beef Steak Club.
London: Printed for Bernard Lintott at the Cross-Keys be-
tween the two Temple Gates in Fleet-street. No date, but about
1708. 8vo, old calf. Titles, and Publisher to the Reader, 4
leaves + pp. 160.
HOWAED, HENEY.
England's IS'ewest way in all sorts of Cookery, Pastry,
And All Pickles that are fit to be Used. Adorn'd
with Copper Plates, setting forth the Manner of placing
Dishes upon Tables; and the Newest Fashions of
Mince-Pies. By Henry Howard, Free Cook of Lon-
don, and late Cook to his Grace the Duke of Ormond,
and since to the Earl of Salisbury, and Earl of Winchel-
sea. Likewise the best Receipts for making Cakes,
Mackroons, Biskets, Ginger-bread, French-bread etc.
The Second Edition with Additions and Amendments.
London, Printed for and Sold by Chr. Coningsby, at the Irik-
bottle against Clifford'' s-Inn Back- Gate, in Fetter- Lane, Fleet-
street. 1708. 8vo, old calf. Title, To the Reader, and Table,
8 leaves + pp. 156 + Publisher's Advertisement, 2 leaves.
144
LAMB, PATKICK.
Eoyal Cookery : Or The Complete Court-Cook,
Title page missing, but Advertisement at end explains it was
printed far and sold by Maurice Atkins, at the Golden-Ball in
S. PaiiPs Church- Yard. 1710. 8vo, old calf. Beginning im-
perfect. Pp. 127 + Bills of Fare, Publisher's Advertisement,
8 leaves. 22 plates, engraved on copper.
LEMEKY, LOUIS.
New Curiosities in Art and ISTature : or a Collection of
the most Valuable Secrets in all Arts and Sciences ; As
appears by the Contents. Composed and Experimented
by the Sieur Lemery, Apothecary to the French King.
Translated into English from the Seventh Edition.
Printed this last Year in French, in which is near one
half more than any former Edition. Illustrated with
Cuts. To which is added a Supplement by the Trans-
lator.
London : Printed for John King, at the Bible and Crown in
Little-Britain ; and sold by J. Marphew, near StationersSaM
1711. 8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, etc., 8 leaves + PP- 354
+ Index, 7 leaves. 8 engravings on copper. On inside of
cover, the book-plate of "William Bowen." On fly-leaf, the
inscription, " To Mrs PenneU from A. S. Hartrick."
14>5
LEMEEY, LOUIS.
A Treatise of All Sorts of Foods. (See French Title.)
Translated by D. Hay, M. D. To which is added, An
Introduction treating of Foods in general: A Table of
the Chapters, and an Alphabetical Index. A Work of
universal Use to all who are inclin'd to know the good
or bad Quahties of what they eat or drink.
London: Printed for T. Osborne, in Gray's-Inn. 1745. 8vo,
old calf. Frontispiece, engraviiig on copper. Frontispiece,
Title, Preface, etc., pp. xii + pp. 372 + Index, 12 leaves.
HALL, T.
The Queen's Eoyal Cookery : Or, Expert and ready Way
for the Dressing of all Sorts of Flesh, Fowl, Fish:
Either Bak'd, Boil'd, Eoasted, Stew'd, Fry'd, Broil'd,
Hash'd, Frigasied, Carbonaded, Forc'd, Collar' d, Sous'd,
Dry'd, etc. After the Best and Newest Way. With
then- several Sauses and Salads, etc. by T. Hall, Free
Cook of London. The Second Edition.
London: Printed for G. Pates, at the Sun and Pible in Gilt-
spur- Street in Pye- Corner : And A. Pettesworth, at the Red Lion
on London Pridge. 1713. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, wood-
cut, a portrait of Queen Anne above drawings of kitchen,
bakery, and distillery. Pp. 180.
146
EALE, MAEY.
Mrs Mary Sale's Receipts. Confectioner to her late
Majesty Queen Anne.
London : Printed by H. Meere in Black-Fryers, and to he had
at Mr Cooper'' s at the Three Pidgeons the lower end of Bedford-
street, near the New Exchange in the Strand. 1718. 8vo, old
calf. Title and Contents, 4 leaves + PP- 100.
COLLECTIOI^, A.
A Collection Of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cook-
ery, Physick and Surgery; For the Use of all Good
Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses. By
several Hands. The Second Edition.
London, Printed for Mary Kettilhy, and Sold by Richard
Wil/cin, at the Ki7ig''s Head in St. PauVs Church-Yard. 1719.
8vo, old calf. Titles and Preface, 7 leaves + pp. 86 + Index
imperfect. On fly-leaf, the inscription, "Hommage to Auto-
lycus fr Austin Dobson. 27. VII. '95 "
E — S — [in later editions, E. Smith].
The Compleat Housewife; Or Accomplished Gentle-
woman's Companion : Being a Collection of upwards of
Five Hundred of the most approved Receipts in Cook-
ery, Pastry, Confectionary, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes,
147
Creams, Jellies, Made Wines, Cordials. With Copper
Plates curioiTsly engraven for the regular Disposition or
Placing the various Dishes and Courses. And Also
Bills of Fare for every Month in the Year. To which
is added, A Collection of near Two Hundred Family
Receipts of Medicines, etc. By E. S.
Landcm: Printed for J. Pemberton, at the Golden Buck, over-
against St. DunstarCs Church in Fleet-street. 1727. 8vo, old
calf. Title, Preface, Bill of Fare, Index, 16 leaves + pp. 326
+ Publisher's Advertisement, 1 leaf. 6 folded plates, inserted
at the end.
SMITH, E.
The Complete Housewife. . . . Being A Collection of
upwards of Seven Hundred of the most approved Re-
ceipts in Cookery, Pastry, Confectionary, Potting, Col-
laring, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes, Custards, Creams,
Preserves, Conserves, Syrups, Jellies, Made Wines, Cor-
dials, Distilhng, Brewing. . . . [As in first edition.] With
Directions for Marketing. By E. Smith. The Eigh-
teenth Edition with Additions.
London : Printed for J. JBuckland, J. and F. Rivington, J.
Minion, Sawes, Clarke and Collins, W. Johnston, S. Crowder,
T. Longman, B. Law, T. Lowndes, S. Bladon, W. Nicoll, and
148
C. and B. Ware. 1773. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, engrav-
rag on copper of kitchen by J. June. Title, Preface, etc., 20
leaves + pp. 400. 4 plates inserted at end.
I^OTT, JOHN.
The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary : Or the Ac-
complish'd Housewives Companion. Containing, 1. the
choicest Receipts in all the several Branches of Cook-
ery, etc. etc., etc. The Third Edition with Additions.
Revised and Recommended by John ISTott, late Cook
to the Dukes of Somerset, Ormond and Bolton j Lord
Lansdown and Ashburnham.
London : Printed by IT. P. for Charles Rivingtcm, at the Bible
and Crown, in St. PauPs Church-yard. 1727. 8vo, old calf.
Frontispiece, engraving on copper, allegory of plenty, by
J. Pine. Pages not numbered. 316 leaves. On inside of
title-page, the book-plate of " Charles Earl of Ailesbury."
CARTER, CHARLES.
The Compleat City and Country Cook : or Accom-
phsh'd Housewife. Containing, Several Hundred of
the most approv'd Receipts in Cookery, Confectionary,
Cordials, Cosmeticks, Jelhes, Pastry, Pickles, Preserv-
ing, Syrups, English Wines, etc. By Charles Carter,
r
149
Lately Cook to his Grace, the Duke of Argyle, the Earl
of Pontefract, the Lord Cornwallis, etc. . . .
London: Printed for A. Bettesworth and C. Sitch; and C.
Davis in Pater-noster Row : T. Green at Charing Cross ; and
S. Austen in jSt. PauTs Church-yard. 1732. 8vo, old calf.
Frontispiece, engraving on copper, plan for an " Instalment
Dinner. A Table for the Ladies in a Horse Shoe Form."
Title and Preface, pp. viii + pp. 280. 49 plates.
LADTS COMPANION, THE.
The Lady's Companion : Or, an infallible Guide to the
Fair Sex. Containing, Rules, Directions, and Obserya-
tions, for their Conduct and Behaviour through all
Ages and Circumstances of Life, as Yirgins, Wives, or
Widows . . . and above one thousand different Re-
ceipts in every Kind of Cookery, etc., etc., etc., The
Second Edition.
London : Printed for T. Jiead, in DogweU- Court, White Fryers,
Fleet-Street. 1740. 8vo, old calf. Pp. 694. 10 Woodcuts
printed with Text. 39 Plates.
AEI^AUD, JASPER.
An Alarm to All Persons Touching their Health and
Lives, etc. etc. By Jasper Arnaud, Sometime past first
150
Cook to the late Duke of Orleans, and now for some
Time Cook in London.
London : Printed for T. Payne in Bound Court in the Strand,
opposite York Buildings. 1740. 8vo, half calf. Title, 1 leaf
+ pp. 24.
FAMILY MAGAZIO], THE.
The Family Magazine : In Two Parts. Part I, Con-
taining Useful Directions in All the Branches of
House-Keeping and Cookery etc. etc. etc. Now First
communicated for the Publick Benefit.
London : Printed for J. Osborn, at the Golden-Ball iti Pater-
noster-Bow. 1741. 8vo, old calf. Title and Preface, pp. xiv
+ sub-title, 1 leaf + 324. 6 woodcuts in text.
PKESENT FOE A SEEYANT MAID, A.
A Present for a Servant-Maid : Or the Sure Means of
gaining Love and Esteem, etc. etc. The "Whole calcu-
lated for making both the Mistress and Maid happy.
London : Printed and Publishedby T. Gardner at CawleyhJSead,
without Temple-Bar ; and sold by the Booksellers of Town and
Country. 1743. 8vo, unbound. Title, Preface, etc., 2 leaves
+ pp. 76.
|;;jji|li|iiij:i|H|!j!!|i||:|j!|ri::;,.:-:|jii^^^
151
ADAM'S LUXURY AND EYE'S COOKERY.
Adam's Luxury, and Eve's Cookery; or the Kitchen-
Garden display'd. etc. etc. etc.
London: Printed for R. Bodsley, in Pall MaU ; and Sold by
M. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-noster Row. 1744. 8vo, old
calf. Titles and Introduction, pp. xii + pp. 216.
KIDDER, EDWARD.
E. Kidder's Receipts of Pastry and Cookery, For the
Use of his Scholars. Who teaches at his School in
Queen Street near St. Thomas Apostles. On Mondays,
Tuesdays & Wednesdays, In the Afternoon. Also on
Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays, In the Afternoon, at
his School next to Furnivals Inn in Holborn, Ladies
may be taught at their own Houses
No publisher, printer, or date given. Hazlitt says it is earlier
than Mrs Glasse's book, which was published in 1747. Prob-
ably about 1740. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, on copper, the
portrait of Kidder by Eob. Sheppard. The Title, the 42 pages
of Text, printed on one side only, and the 8 plates are all
engraved on copper.
GLASSE, HAIWAH.
The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy; Which far
exceeds any Thing of the Kind ever yet PubUshed.
152
Containing, I. Of Eoasting, Boiling, &c. II. Of Made-
Dishes. III. Eead this Chapter, and you will find how
Expensive a French Cook's Sauce is. lY. To make a
ISTumber of pretty little Dishes fit for a Supper, or Side-
Dish, and little Coi'ner-Dishes for a great Table; and
the rest you have in the Chapter for Lent. Y. To
dress Fish. YI. Of Soops and Broths. YH. Of Pud-
dings. YIII. Of Pies. IX. For a Fast-Dinner, a IS'um-
ber of good Dishes, which you may make use for a
Table at any other Time. X. Directions for the Sick.
XI. For Captains of Ships. XII. Of Hog's Puddings,
Sausages, &c. XIII. To Pot and make Hams, &c.
XIY. OfPicklmg. XY. Of Making Cakes, (fee. XYI.
Of Cheesecakes, Creams, Jellies, "Whip Syllabubs, &c.
XYH. Of Made Wines, Brewing, French Bread, Muf-
fins, &c. XYHI. Jarring Cherries, and Preserves, &c.
XIX. To Make Anchovies, Yermicella, Ketchup, Yine-
gar, and to keep Artichokes, French-Beans, &c. XX.
Of Distilling. XXI. How to Market, and the Seasons
of the Year for Butcher's Meat, Poultry, Fish, Herbs,
Eoots, &c. and Fruit. XXII. A certain Cure for the
Bite of a Mad Dog. By Dr. Mead. By a Lady.
First Edition.
153
London : Printed for the Author ; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn^s,
a Cliina-Shop Comer of Fleet-Ditch. 1747. Folio, modern
morocco. Title, List of Subscribers, and Table, 8 leaves +
pp. 166. Interleaved with modern paper ; on the first four
leaves, four newspaper clippings pasted in by G. A. Sala.
"Written on fly-leaf, " This is a copy of the First Edition of the
famous Cookery Book written by Mrs Hannah Glasse (the
authorship of which was erroneously ascribed by Dr. Johnson
— see BosweU's Life — to Dr. Hill) Mrs Glasse, however,
was a real personage ' Habit Maker to the Royal Family ' and
lived in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury — Observe in the
list of Subscribers the name of Mr Glasse, attorney at law,
and Mrs Glasse, Carey St. These were probably of close kin-
dred to Hannah. Subsequent editions bear on the title page
a fac-sinule of H. G.'s autograph. There are (July 1876) only
Four Copies of this First Edition (a ' pot ' folio) known to be in
existence, viz: One in the Library of the British Museum —
One in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. One in the possession
of the Rev. Richard Hooper of Upton Rectory, Didcot — and
One (hie inventus adest) belonging to George Augustus Sala.
46 Mecklenburgh Square. W. C. London." Since the book
has been mine, I have seen two additional copies advertised
in booksellers' catalogues. I am afraid Sala had not read his
" BosweU " very carefully. His reference to Dr. Johnson is
not quite accurate.
154
GLASSE, HANl^AH.
The Art of Cookery, etc. By a Lady. — The Fourth
Edition with Additions.
London, Printed for the Author, and sold at the Bluecoai-Boy,
near the Royai-Exchange, etc. 1751. 8vo, old calf. Frontis-
piece, an advertisement for Hannah Glasse, engraved on cop-
per. The only edition with this plate. Her autograph, H.
Glasse, on first page. Title, Preface, etc., 11 leaves + PP- 334.
GLASSE, HANNAH.
The Art of Cookery, etc. By a Lady. The Eighth
Edition.
London: Printed for A. Millar, etc. 1763. 8vo, old calf.
Her autograph, H. Glasse, on first page. Title, 1 leaf -f- To
the Eeader, pp. vi + Contents, 12 leaves + pp. 384 + Index,
12 leaves.
GLASSE, HANNAH.
The Art of Cookery, etc. By a Lady The Ninth
Edition.
London Printed for A. Millar, etc. 1765. Paging same as in
Eighth Edition.
GLASSE, HANNAH.
The Art of Cookery, etc. By H. Glasse
THE
A
R
O F
T
COOKERY,
Made PLAIN arid EASY}
which far exceeds any T h i n c of the Kind ever yet Publiflied.
CONTAINING.
I Of Roafting, Boiling, tSc.
II. Of M. Jc-Uifiies.
III. Kijd this Ciwptcr, and you will find how
E.xpcnfive a Frtncb Cook's Sauce is.
IV. To make a Number of prtity link Dilhcs lit
for a|S»jppcr, or Side-Dilh, and lictlc Corner^
Uilhci lor a g[:--t Tabic; and ihe reft you liavc
in the CluplLT tur Lent.
V. Tudrtfs Fi(h.
VI. or Soops and Brotlu.
V!l. Of Puiidinjs.
Vlll. OlPies.
I A. Fur a Fjft-Dinner, a Number of s;ood Diftic:,
wAich you inay make ufc for a 1 able at any
utiicr Ti.iitr.
X Uuvfllons for the Sick.
Xr F'»r Cipi.iins o( Ships
XII. Of IKiSPaJdings. Saufjges, tic.
Xm. To Pot and Mate Hams, iit.
XtV. Of P.ckhng.
XV. Of Making Cakes, Ijfc.
XVI. Of Chccfecakcs, Creams, Jellies, Whip
Syllabubs, i3'c.
XVII. OfMaJe Wines, Brewing, Frinch^mi,
Muffins, <s!c.
XVIil. Jarring Cherries, and Prefcrvcs, t^r.
XIX. lo Maki; Anchovies, Vermicclla, Ketchup,
"Vini'gjr, and to keep Artichokes, French-
Bean , tff.
XX (JfD.dllinj.
XXI. How (o Market, and the Scafons of the
Year lorIi'itch:i''. .Meat, Poultry, FiDi, Herbs,
Root::, L'fc. ait'l Fru't.
XXII. A certain Cure lot the Biic of a Mad Doe.
By Dr. Mead.
BY A LADY.
.LONDON:
Printed for the A u t h o r ; and fold at Mrs. AJhhurn'%, a, China-Shop
Corner of FUet-Ditcb. Mdccxlvii.
£ Pritc 3 s. Jliich'J, and s J. BnnJ. ]
'^nd^tW WUi-tona ,a.{iha'hU\e -coiiBoj.near ihe Royal Lxchin^e ,
155
Edinburgh: Printed for Alexander Bonaldsmi. 1774. 8vo,
old calf. Title and To the Reader, pp. vi + Contents, 9 leaves
+ pp. 440 + Index, 12 leaves.
GLASSE, HANNAH.
The Art of Cookery, etc.. By Mrs. Glasse. A New
Edition.
London : Printed for W. Strahan, etc. 1784. Bvo, old calf.
Her autograph, H. Glasse, engraved on first page. Title, 1
leaf + To the Reader, pp. iv + Index and Contents imper-
fect + pp. 409 + a second Index at end, 13 leaves. 1 fold-
ing plate.
GLASSE, HANNAH.
The Servants' Directory, or House-Keeper's Compan-
ion. By H. Glass, Author of the Art of Cookery made
plain and easy.
London : Printed for the Author ; and sold by W. Johnston in
LrndgaJte-street ; at Mrs. Wharton''s, the Plue- Coat-Boys near the
Royal Exchange, etc. 1760, Bvo, old calf. Title and Preface,
pp. viii + List of Subscribers, 2 leaves + PP- 432.
GLASSE, HANNAH.
The Compleat Confectioner: or the Whole Art of Con-
fectionary Made Plain and Easy, etc., etc. By H. Glasse,
Author of the Art of Cookery.
156
London : Printed: And Sold at Mrs. Ashburner's China Shop,
the Corner of Fleet Ditch; at Yewd^s Hat Warehouse, near
Somerset Souse ; at KirKs Toyshop in St. JPaid's Church-
yard ; at Deard's Toyshop, facing Arlingtmi^ Street, Piccadilly ;
etc. No date. 8vo, half calf. Her autograph, H. Glasse, en-
graved as signature to dedication and on first page. Title
and Dedication, 2 leaves + pp. 304 + Contents, 7 leaves +
Appendix, pp. 48 + Index, 12 leaves. Written on iiy-leaf :
" To the Editor of the Times. Friday, October 5, 1866. Sir,
Your culinary critic is wrong in thinking Mrs. Glasse allied
to Mrs. Harris. The former lady lived in the flesh in Edin-
burgh about 1790. She taught cookery to classes of young
ladies. My mother was a pupil and fondly showed in her
old age to her children a copy of Glasse's Cookery, with the
autograph of the authoress, gained as a prize in the School
of Cookery. This book did contain ' Catch your hare.' I am
etc. M. D."
ACCOMPLISH'D HOUSEWIFE, THE.
The Accomplish'd Housewife; or, the Gentlewoman's
Companion, etc, etc.
London : Printed for J. Newiury, cut the Pible and Sun near
the Chapter- Souse in St. Paul's Church- Yard, and J3. Collins,
Bookseller, in Salisbury. 1748. 8vo, old calf. Title, Preface,
and Dedication, 7 leaves + pp. 431 + Index, 6 leaves.
157
HAEEISON, SARAH.
The Housekeeper's Pocket-Book; And Compleat
Family Cook, etc., etc. By Mrs. Sarah Harrison, of
Devonshire. The Fourth Edition.
London: Printed for R. Ware, at the Bible and Sun on Lud-
gate-SiU. 1748. 8to, old calf. Title and Dedication, pp. iv
+ Preface and Contents, 2 leaves + pp. 268 + Index and
Tables, 18 Leaves. I have another edition, without name of
author or date, but with 1783 printed under the engraved fron-
tispiece.
LA CHAPELLE, YINCENT.
The Modern Cook's, and Complete Housewife's Com-
panion, etc., etc. By Mr. Yincent La Chapelle. The
Fourth Edition.
London : Printed for P. Manhy and H. S. Cox on Ludgate
HiU. 1751. 8vo, old calf. Title and Dedication, 2 leaves +
Preface and Contents, pp. xl + pp. 432. At end, 6 folding
plates.
CLELAiro, ELIZABETH.
A New and Easy Method of Cookery, etc., etc. By
Ehzabeth Cleland. The Second Edition.
Edinburgh: Printed by C. Wright and Company : And sold at
their Printing-house in Craig''s Close, and by the Booksellers in
158
Town. 1759. 8vo, in Boards. Title and Contents, 7 leaves
+ pp. 232.
YEEEAL, WILLIAM.
A Complete System of Cookery, etc., etc. By William
Yerral, Master of the White-Hart Inn in Lewes, Sus-
sex.
London, Printed for the Author, and sold by him; As also by
Edward Verral Bookseller, in Lewes : And by John Itivington
in St. Paul's Church- Yard, London. 1759. 8vo, old calf.
Title and Contents, 7 leaves + Preface, pp. xxxiii + pp. 240.
On inside of cover, book plate of " John Urry." Written on
fly-leaf, "Mrs Urry, 1st November 1775."
PKICE, ELIZABETH.
The New Book of Cookery ; or Every Woman a per-
fect Cook, etc., etc. By Mrs Eliz. Price of Berkeley
Square. A JSTew Edition.
London : Printed for the Authoress, and sold by Alex Hogg.
No date — probably between 1760 and 1770. 8vo, old calf.
Title and Preface, 2 leaves +pp. 114 + Index, 1 leaf. Bound
up with it, Mrs. Price's " New Universal and Complete Con-
fectioner." Frontispiece, engraving on copper. Title, Pre-
face, Contents, pp. viii + pp. 371 + Alex Hogg's Catalogue,
pp. 12.
159
TOWN AISTD COUNTRY COOK, THE.
The Town and Country Cook; or Young Woman's
Best Guide, in the Whole Art of Cookery, etc., etc.
London: Printed for W. Lane, Leadenhall Street, and sold by
aU other Booksellers. No date. Probably between 1760 and
1770. 12mo, in boards. Frontispiece, engraving on copper
of a kitchen. Title, 1 leaf + pp. 84
GELI^EOY, WILLIAM.
The London Cook, or The Whole Art of Cookery made
easy and familiar, etc., etc. By William Gelleroy, Late
Cook to her Grace the Dutchess of Argyle. And now
to the Right Hon. Sir Samuel Fludger, Bart. Lord
Mayor of the City of London.
London: Printed for S. Crowder and Co.atthe LooTcing Glass:
J. Coote, at the Eing's Arms, in Pater-noster Row ; and J.
Fletcher, St. PavTs Church- Yard. 1762. 8vo, old calf. Title
and To the Reader, pp. iv + Menus and Contents, 9 leaves +
pp. 486 + Publisher's advertisement, 1 leaf. 1 folding plate.
MOXON, ELIZABETH.
English Housewifery, Exemplified in Above Four Hun-
dred and Fifty Receipts, Giving Directions in Most
Parts of Cookery, etc., etc. By Elizabeth Moxon. The
Ninth Edition, Corrected.
160
Leedes : Printed by Griffith Wright, for George Copperthwaite,
Bookseller in Leedes ; and sold by Mr. JB. Dod, JBooksdler in
Aoe-Mary Lane, etc. 1764. 8vo, vellum. Beginning imper-
fect + pp. 203 + Supplement, pp. 25 + Sub-title, Bills of
Fare, Index, 12 leaves. 8 woodcuts. On inserted leaf, the
inscription : " Receipts by Elizabeth Moxon, To Mrs J. Pen-
neU with kindest regards from Charles G. Leland, Florence.
Feb. 17. 1901."
MOXON, ELIZABETH.
English Housewifery, etc. The Thirteenth Edition,
Corrected.
London : printed for W. Osborne, etc. 1789. Svo, old calf.
Title, Preface, etc., pp. viii + pp. 203 + Supplement, pp. 33
+ Bills of Fare, etc., 11 leaves. 6 Wood-engravings.
SHACKLEFOED, AISTN.
The Modern Art of Cookery Improved, etc., etc. By
Mrs. Ann Shackleford of Winchester.
London : Printed for J. Newbery, at the Bible and Sun, in St.
PauVs Church Yard; and F. Newbery, Pater-noster-R<m.
1767. Title, Preface, Preliminary, pp. xxiv -\- pp. 284 +
Index, 7 leaves.
161
KAFFALD, ELIZABETH.
The Experienced English House-keeper, For the Use
and Ease of Ladies, House-keepers, Cooks, etc., etc.,
etc. By Elizabeth Eaffald.
Manchester : Printed by J. Harrop for the Author, and sold by
Messrs. Fletcher and Anderson, in St. PauPs Church- Yard,
London ; and by Eliz. Eaffald, Confectioner, near the Exchange,
Manchester. 1769. 8vo, old calf. Her autograph, Eliz. Raf-
fald, on first page. Title and Dedication, 2 leaves + To the
Reader, pp. Ill + pp. 362 + Index, pp. xi. 2 folding plates.
EAFFALD, ELIZABETH.
The Experienced English Housekeeper, etc. The
Fourth Edition.
London: Printed for the Author, and sold by R. Baldwin, JVb.
47, in Pater-noster-Pow 1775. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece,
portrait of Mrs. Raffald, engraved on copper. Her autograph,
Eliz Raffald, on first page. Title and Dedication, 2 leaves
+ Preface, pp. Ill + pp. 382 + Index, 7 leaves. 3 folding
plates.
MASON, CHAELOTTE.
The Lady's Assistant, etc., etc. Published from the
Manuscript Collection of Mrs. Charlotte Mason, A Pro-
162
fessed Housekeeper, who had upwards of Thirty Years'
Experience in Families of the first Fashion.
London : Printed for J. Walter, at Homer's Head, Charing Cross.
1775. 8vo, old calf. Titles and Introduction, pp. vi + Ad-
vertisement, 1 leaf + pp. 471 + Index, 10 leaves.
PEGGE, SAMUEL.
The Forme of Cury, A Roll of Ancient English Cook-
ery, Compiled, about A. D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks
of King Richard II, Presented afterwards to Queen
Elizabeth, by Edward Lord Stafford, And now in the
Possession of Gustavus Brander, Esq., etc. Edited by
Dr. Pegge.
London : Printed by J. Nichols, Printer to the Society of Anti-
quaries. 1780. 8vo, old calf. Frontispiece, portrait of
Dr. Pegge, engraved on copper. Title and Preliminary, pp.
xxxvi + pp. 188. On inside of cover, book plate of "John
Wingfield Larking."
HONOURS OF THE TABLE, THE.
The Honours of the Table, or Rules for Behaviour
During Meals, etc., etc. By the Author of Principles
of Politeness, etc.
( 63 )
_
a Hare
Thefe fkewers are feldom removed till the
hare is cut up.
Now, there are two ways of cutting It
up. The genteeleft, beft and readieft way,
is as above defcribed, to put in the point
of the knife at ^, and cut it through all
the
163
Lwhdon : Printed for the Author at the Literary Press, No. 14,
Ped-JOion- Street, Clerkenwell, and may he had of U. P. Symonds,
Paternoster- Pow, and all Pooksellers in Town and Country.
1788. 12mo, half calf. Pp. 120. With wood-engravings hy
John Bewick. On inside of cover, card of Capt. R. Williams,
Royal Navy. On fly-leaf, book plate of "Walter Besant,
M. A."
HONOUES OF THE TABLE, THE.
The Honours of the Table, etc. The Second Edition.
London : The same. 1791.
HONOURS OF THE TABLE, THE.
The Honours of the Table, etc. An L-ish Edition.
Dublin : Printed by W. Stealer, No. 28, Dame-street. 1791.
The same. Pp.126.
COLE, MAEY.
The Lady's Complete Guide, or Cookery and Confec-
tionary in all their Branches, etc., etc. By Mrs. Mary
Cole, Cook to the Right Hon. the Earl of Drogheda.
Zondon: Printed for G. Kearsley, No. Jfi Fleet- Street. 1789.
8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, etc., pp. xx -|- Contents, xxvii
+ pp. 564.
164.
LADIES' LIBEAEY, THE.
The Ladies' Library : or Encyclopedia of Female Know-
ledge, etc.
London: Printed for J. Midgway, JVb. 1 York Street, St.
James's Square. 1790. 8vo, old calf. 2 vols. Vol. I : Fron-
tispiece, engraving of " Jno Perkins, Many Tears Cook in the
Families of Earl Gower and Lord Melbourn." Title and Pre-
face, pp. XV + pp. 407. 3 plates. Vol. II : Frontispiece, a
second, quite different portrait of "Mr. Perkins, Cook."
Title, lleaf + pp. 215.
OKDINAKCES AND REGULATIONS.
A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the
Government of the Royal Household, Made in Divers
Reigns. From King Edward III. to King William and
Queen Mary. Also Receipts in Ancient Cookery.
London: Printed for the Society of Antiquaries by John
Nichols : Sold by Messieurs White and Son ; Hobson ; Leigh
and Sotheby ; Browne ; and EgertorHs. 1790. 4to, calf. On
inside of cover, book-plate of " Sir Charles Cockerell Bart."
Title and Preliminary, pp. xxii+ PP- 476.
WARNER, THE REY. RICHARD.
Antiquitates Culinarise or Curious Tracts relating to the
Culinary affairs of the Old English. With a preliminary
165
discourse, !N"otes and Elustrations by the Reverend
Richard Warner, of Sway near Lyniington, Hants.
London : Printed for a. Blamire, Strand. 1791. Folio, calf.
The Title-page is engraved on copper. Preliminary Discourse,
pp. Ix + pp. 137- 2 plates.
ABBOT, ROBERT.
The Housekeeper's Valuable Present: or Lady's Closet
Companion, etc., etc. By Robert Abbot, Late Appren-
tice to Messrs I^egri & Guuter, Confectioners, in Berke-
ley Square.
London. Printed for the Author ; And sold by C. Cooke, -No.
17, Pater-noster Row ; and aM other Pooksellers in Town and
Country. No date. Probably 1790 or 1791. Written on inside
of cover, " Anne Jones, Dec. 18, 1791." 12mo, old calf. Title,
Preface, Contents, pp. xii + pp. 100.
COLLmGWOOD AND WOOLLAMS.
The Universal Cook, and City and Country House-
keeper, etc., etc. By Francis ColUngwood, and John
WooUams, Principal Cooks at the Crown and Anchor
Tavern in the Strand, Late from the London Tavern.
Lmdon : Printed by B. Noble, for J. Scatcherd and J. Whit-
aker. No. 12, Ave- Maria^ Lane. 1792. 8vo, old calf. Frontis-
166
piece, engraving on copper, portraits of the two authors. Title,
Preface, etc., 13 leaves + pp. 451. 12 plates.
FKENCH FAMILY COOK, THE.
The French Family Cook : Being A complete System
of French Cookery, etc., etc. Translated from the
French.
London : Printed for J. Bell, No. 148, Oxford Street, nearly
opposite Mw Bond Street. 1793. 8vo, calf. Title, BiLLs of
Fare, 4 leaves + Contents, pp. xxiv + pp. 342 + Publisher's
Advertisement, 1 leaf.
BEIGGS, EICHAED.
The English Art of Cookery, According to the Present
Practice ; Being a Complete Guide to all Housekeepers,
etc., etc. By Richard Briggs, Many Years Cook at the
"White-Hart Tavern, Holborn, Temple Coffee-House,
and other Taverns in London. Third Edition.
London : Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, Pater-Noster-
Pow. 1794. 8vo, old calf. Title and To the Reader, pp. iv
+ Contents, pp. xx + pp. 564. 12 plates.
MARTIN, SARAH.
The New Experienced English-Housekeeper, For the
167
Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks, etc.
Written Purely From Her Own Practice. By Mrs
Sarah Martin, Many Years Housekeeper to the late
Freeman Bower Esq. of Bawtry.
Doticaster : Printed for the Authoress by D. Boys. And Sold
hy F. & C. Rivingtoii, St. PauVs Church- Yard., London. 1795.
8vo, old calf. Title, Preface, List of Subscribers, 10 leaves +
pp. 173 + Index, 9 leaves. On fly-leaf is written, " The origi-
nal Edition — very scarce H. B. ;" and, below, "The above,
in pencil, was written by Henry Bower Esq., my uncle : son of
Freeman Bower Esq. of Bawtry, to whom the Book is dedi-
cated by the author of it, his own Housekeeper. J. E. Jack-
son, Leigh, Delamere, Chippenham, Wilts. April 1867 ; " and,
in pencU, on inside of cover, " Canon Jackson's copy."
BEADLET, MAETHA.
The British Housewife: or the Cook, Housekeeper's
and Gardiner's Companion, etc., etc. By Mrs Martha
Bradley, late of Bath: Beingthe Result of upwards of
Thirty Years Experience.
London : Printed for S. Crowder and H. Woodgate, at the
Golden Bell in Paternoster Row. No date, probably at the
very end of the eighteenth century. 8vo, old calf. Pp. 752.
168
SPANISH
ALTIMIEAS, JUAN.
Nuevo Arte de Cocina, Sacado de la Escuela de la Ex-
periencia Economica. Su Autor Juan Altimiras. Dedi-
cale a San Diego de Alcala.
En Madrid: For Antonio Perez de Soto. Ano de 1760. 12mo,
old vellum. Title, Dedication, and Preliminary, 15 leaves +
pp. 152. 1 Ulustration, woodcut, showing kitchen utensils.
MONTINO, FEANCISCO MAETINEZ.
Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Yizcocheria, y Conserveria,
Compuesto por Francisco Martinez Montino, Cocinero
Mayor del Rey. Decimaquinta Impresion.
Ml Madrid: en la Imprenta de Don Joseph Dohlado. Ano de
[date blotted — 1757 or 1771?]. 12mo, paper covers. Title,
Preface, etc., 4 leaves + pp. 480.
MATA, JUAN DE LA.
Arte de Eeposteria, en que ee Contiene Todo Genero
de Hacer Dulces Secas, y en Liquido, Yizcochos, Tur-
rones, Natas : Bebidas Heladas de Todos Generos, Ro-
eolis, Mistelas, etc. Con una Breve Instruccion para
conocer las Frutas, y servirlas Crudas. Y Diez Mesas
ARTE
DE COCINA,
PASTELERIA,
VIZCOCHERIA,
Y CONSERVERIA,
COMPUEStO POR FRANCISCO
Martinez Montlno , Cocinero Mayor
del Rey.
DECIMAQUINTA IMPRESION.
CON LICENCIA.
En Madrid : en la Imprenra de Do^ Joseph
DoBLADO. Ano de
169
con eu Explicacion. Su autor Juan de la Mata, Eepos-
tero en esta Corte, natural del Lugar de Matalavilla,
Concejo del Sil de Arriba, Montanas, y Keyno de Leon,
Obispado de Oviedo.
En Madrid: en la Oficina de Ramon Ruiz. 1791. 4to, old
vellum. Title and Preliminary, 4 leaves + pp. 232.
LEKA, CECILIO GAECIA DE LA.
Disertacion en Eecomendacion y Defensa del Famoso
Yino Malagiieno Pero Ximen y Modo de Formarlo.
Dedicala A La M. I. Y. Antigua Hermandad de Yine-
ros de Malaga. D. Cecilio Garcia de la Lena, Presbi-
tero y Yecino de Dicha Ciudad.
Malaga : Par Luis de Carreras, Impresor de la Dig. Episc, de
la Sta. Iglesia, de esta M. I. C. y del Rl. Colegio de San Tehno
en la Plaza. 1792. 4to, old calf. Title, Frontispiece, Dedi-
cation, pp. xiv + pp. 158.
Note. I am more than ever conscious of the difficulties of compiUng
anything like a complete bibUography of my own books, because
of the important additions made to my collection since my MS.
■went to press. From Spain, my husband has just brought me
several old volumes to strengthen my Spanish section, which, I
admit, was weak enough. I have now three more editions of the
170
Nuevo Arte de Cocina by Juan Altimiras : one, the oldest, published
at Barcelona in 1758, one published in the same town but without
a date, and one issued from a Madrid publishing house, as late as
1817. I have two more editions of the Arte de Cocina by Fran-
cisco Martinez Montino : one, vellum- covered, published at Bar-
celona in 1763, and one in 1823. I have another and very much
earlier Arte de Beposteria by Juan de la Mata, Madrid, 1747. And
I can also boast a copy of the curious Arte Cisoria, O Tratado del
Arte del Cortar del Cuchillo, by the Marques de Viliena, an im-
mensely interesting old 15th century treatise, pubUshed in 1766,
from the original in the Royal Library of the Escorial ; and a
hardly less interesting Tratado de Los Usos, Abusos, Propiedes, y
Virtudes del Tabaco, Cafe, Te, y Chocolate, edited from various
sources by Don Antonio Lavedan, and published at Madrid in
1796 — a book that even M. Vicaire does not seem to know any-
thing about.
While I am in the way of boasting, I think I shall be found more
than justified if I record the most precious, bibUographically, of all
my recent acquisitions — a copy of Platiaa's De Honesta Voluptate,
the earUest of aU printed Cookery Books that I, at least, know
anything about. Mine is not the first edition, which is reserved
only for the Rothschilds among collectors, but it is fairly early —
1503 — in beautiful condition, with the date given at the end, and
spaces left for the capitals almost throughout. I count myself
fortunate, too, in a delightful little copy of Baldassare Pisanelli's
Trattato della Natura de Cibi, et del Bere; Venice, 1601, in old
171
limp vellum covers; while to the kindness of a friend — kind-
ness for which thanks are a poor return — I owe a copy of L'Arte
di Ben Cucinare, by Bartolomeo Stefani, Bologna, 1687.
Then, I am tempted to add an American section, three or four
irresistible little American Cookery Books having come into my
possession of late: among them an American edition of Mrs.
Glasse, which, I believe, was absolutely unknown until a generous
sympathizer in Baltimore found it in his own library and sent it
to me — an imprecedented act of generosity on the part of an abso-
lute stranger. But to write of all these treasures would be to
rewrite my book. By this unworthy reference to them, I hope at
least to give a new proof of the fact that a collection of Cookery
Books is not made in a day. But if it were, where would be the
pleasure ?
THEEE HUNBEED AND THIRTY COPIES
PRINTED AT
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
IN THE MONTH OE SEPTEMBER
MDCCCCIII
or WHICH THIS IS